15 New Upcoming Books in the Month of September 2021

The Whisper Gazette

Where Will the Broken Hearted Pray Now?

By Kutlass Knightlinger

The door to the Prince of Hearts’s church has disappeared. Painted the deep bloodred of broken hearts, the iconic entry simply vanished from one of the Temple District’s most visited churches sometime during the night, leaving behind an impenetrable marble wall. It’s now impossible for anyone to enter the church—

Evangeline shoved the two-week-old newsprint into the pocket of her flowered skirt. The door at the end of this decrepit alley was barely taller than she was, and hidden behind a rusted metal grate instead of covered in beautiful bloodred paint, but she would have bet her father’s curiosity shop that this was the missing door.

Nothing in the Temple District was this unattractive. Every entry here was carved panels, decorative architraves, glass awnings, and gilded keyholes. Her father had been a man of faith, but he used to say that the churches here were like vampires— they weren’t meant for worship, they were designed to entice and entrap. But this door was different. This door was just a rough block of wood with a missing handle and chipped white paint.

This door did not want to be found.

Yet it couldn’t hide what it truly was from Evangeline.

The jagged shape of it was unmistakable. One side was a sloping curve, the other a serrated slash, forming one half of a broken heart—a symbol of the Fated Prince of Hearts.

Finally.

If hope were a pair of wings, Evangeline’s were stretching out behind her, eager to take flight again. After two weeks of searching the city of Valenda, she’d found it.

When the gossip sheet in her pocket had first announced that the door from the Prince of Hearts’s church had gone missing, few imagined it was magic. It was the scandal sheet’s first article, and people said it was part of a hoax to sell subscriptions. Doors didn’t simply disappear.

But Evangeline believed that they could. The story hadn’t felt like a gimmick to her; it had felt like a sign, telling her where to search if she was going to save her heart and the boy that it belonged to.

She might not have seen much evidence of magic outside of the oddities in her father’s curiosity shop, but she had faith it existed. Her father, Maximilian, had always spoken of magic as if it were real. And her mother had been from the Magnificent North, where there was no difference between fairytales and history. All stories are made of both truths and lies, she used to say. What matters is the way that we believe in them.

And Evangeline had a gift when it came to believing in things that others considered myths—like the immortal Fates.

She opened the metal grate. The door itself didn’t have a handle, forcing her to wedge her fingers into the tiny space between its jagged edge and the dirty stone wall.

The door pinched her fingers, drawing a drop of blood, and she swore she heard its splintered voice say, Do you know what you’re about to step into? Nothing but heartbreak will come from this.

But Evangeline’s heart was already broken. And she understood the risks she was taking. She knew the rules for visiting Fated churches:

Always promise less than you can give, for Fates always take more.

Do not make bargains with more than one Fate.

And, above all, never fall in love with a Fate.

There were sixteen immortal Fates, and they were jealous and possessive beings. Before they’d vanished centuries ago, it was said they ruled over part of the world with magic that was as malevolent as it was marvelous. They never broke a bargain, although they often hurt the people they helped. Yet most people—even if they believed the Fates were merely myths— became desperate enough to pray to them at some point.

Evangeline had always been curious about their churches, but she’d known enough about the mercurial nature of Fates and Fated bargains to avoid seeking their places of worship. Until two weeks ago, when she’d become one of those desperate people the stories always cautioned about.

“Please,” she whispered to the heart-shaped door, filling her voice with the wild and battered hope that had led her here. “I know you’re a clever little thing. But you allowed me to find you. Let me in.”

She gave the wood a final tug.

This time, the door opened.

Evangeline’s heart raced as she took her first step. During her search for the missing door, she’d read that the Prince of Hearts’s church held a different aroma for everyone who visited. It was supposed to smell like a person’s greatest heartbreak.

But as Evangeline entered the cool cathedral, the air did not remind her of Luc—there were no hints of suede or vetiver. The dim mouth of the church was slightly sweet and metallic: apples and blood.

Gooseflesh covered her arms. This was not reminiscent of the boy she loved. The account she’d read must have been wrong. But she didn’t turn around. She knew Fates weren’t saints or saviors, although she hoped that the Prince of Hearts was more feeling than the others.

Her steps took her deeper inside the cathedral. Everything was shockingly white. White carpets, white candles, white prayer pews of white oak, white aspen, and flaky white birch.

Evangeline passed row after row of mismatched white benches. They might have been handsome once, but now many had missing legs, while others had mutilated cushions or benches that had been broken in half.

Broken.

Broken.

Broken.

No wonder the door hadn’t wanted to let her enter. Perhaps this church wasn’t sinister, it was sad—

A rough rip shattered the church’s silence.

Evangeline spun around and choked back a gasp.

Several rows behind her, in a shadowed corner, a young man appeared to be in mourning or performing some act of penance. Wild locks of golden hair hung across his face as his head bowed and his fingers tore at the sleeves of his burgundy topcoat.

Her heart felt a pang as she watched him. She was tempted to ask if he needed help. But he’d probably chosen the corner to go unnoticed.

And she didn’t have much time left.
There were no clocks inside the church, but Evangeline swore she heard the tick of a second hand, working at erasing the precious minutes she had until Luc’s wedding.

She hurried down the nave to the apse, where the fractured rows of benches ceased and a gleaming marble dais rose before her. The platform was pristine, lit by a wall of beeswax candles and surrounded by four fluted columns, guarding a larger-than life statue of the Fated Prince of Hearts.

The back of her neck prickled.

Evangeline knew what he was supposed to look like. Decks of Destiny, which used Fated images to tell fortunes, had recently become a popular item in her father’s curiosity shop. The Prince of Hearts’s card represented unrequited love, and it always depicted the Fate as tragically handsome, with vivid blue eyes crying tears that matched the blood forever staining the corner of his sulky mouth.

There were no bloody tears on this glowing statue. But its face did possess a ruthless kind of beauty, the sort Evangeline would have expected from a demigod that had the ability to kill with his kiss. The prince’s marble lips twisted into a perfect smirk that should have looked cold and hard and sharp, but there was a hint of softness to his slightly fuller lower lip—it pouted out like a deadly invitation.

According to the myths, the Prince of Hearts was not capable of love because his heart had stopped beating long ago. Only one person could make it work again: his one true love. They said his kiss was fatal to all but her—his only weakness— and as he’d sought her, he’d left a trail of corpses.

Evangeline couldn’t imagine a more tragic existence. If one Fate were to have sympathy for her situation, it would be the Prince of Hearts.

Her gaze found his elegant marble fingers clasping a dagger the size of her forearm. The blade pointed down toward a stone offering basin balanced on a burner, just above a low circle of dancing white flames. The words Blood for a Prayer were carved into its side.

Evangeline took a deep breath.

This was what she’d come here for.

She pressed her finger to the tip of the blade. Sharp marble pierced her skin, and drop after drop of blood fell, sizzling and hissing, filling the air with more metal and sweet.

A part of her hoped this tithe might conjure up some sort of magical display. That the statue would come to life, or the Prince of Hearts’s voice would fill the church. But nothing moved save for the flames on the wall of candles. She couldn’t even hear the anguished young man in the back of the church. It was just she and the statue.

“Dear—Prince,” she started haltingly. She’d never prayed to a Fate, and she didn’t want to get it wrong. “I’m here because my parents are dead.”

Evangeline cringed. That was not how she was supposed to start.

“What I meant to say was, my parents have both passed away. I lost my mother a couple of years ago. Then I lost my father last season. Now I’m about to lose the boy that I love.

“Luc Navarro—” Her throat closed as she said the name and pictured his crooked smile. Maybe if he’d been plainer, or poorer, or crueler, none of this would have happened. “We’ve been seeing each other in secret. I was supposed to be in mourning for my father. Then, a little over two weeks ago, on the day that Luc and I were going to tell our families we were in love, my stepsister, Marisol, announced that she and Luc were getting married.”

Evangeline paused to close her eyes. This part still made her head spin. Quick engagements weren’t uncommon. Marisol was pretty, and although she was reserved, she was also kind—so much kinder than Evangeline’s stepmother, Agnes. But Evangeline had never even seen Luc in the same room as Marisol.

“I know how this sounds, but Luc loves me. I believe he’s been cursed. He hasn’t spoken to me since the engagement was announced—he won’t even see me. I don’t know how she did it, but I’m certain this is all my stepmother’s doing.” Evangeline didn’t actually have any proof that Agnes was a witch and she’d cast a curse on Luc. But Evangeline was certain her stepmother had learned of Evangeline’s relationship with Luc and she’d wanted Luc, and the title he’d someday inherit, for her daughter instead.

“Agnes has resented me ever since my father died. I’ve tried talking to Marisol about Luc. Unlike my stepmother, I don’t think Marisol would ever intentionally hurt me. But every time I try to open my mouth, the words won’t come out, as if they’re also cursed or I’m cursed. So I’m here, begging for your help. The wedding is today, and I need you to stop it.”

Evangeline opened her eyes.

The lifeless statue hadn’t changed. She knew statues didn’t generally move. Yet she couldn’t help but think that it should have done something—shifted or spoken or moved its marble eyes. “Please, I know you understand heartbreak. Stop Luc from marrying Marisol. Save my heart from breaking again.”

“Now, that was a pathetic speech.” Two slow claps followed the indolent voice, which sounded just a few feet away.

Evangeline spun around, all the blood draining from her face. She didn’t expect to see him—the young man who’d been tearing his clothes in the back of the church. Although it was difficult to believe this was the same person. She had thought that boy was in agony, but he must have ripped away his pain along with the sleeves of his jacket, which now hung in tatters over a striped black-and-white shirt that was only halfway tucked into his breeches.

He sat on the dais steps, lazily leaning against one of the pillars with his long, lean legs stretched out before him. His hair was golden and messy, his too-bright blue eyes were bloodshot, and his mouth twitched at the corner as if he didn’t enjoy much, but he found pleasure in the brief bit of pain he’d just inflicted upon her. He looked bored and rich and cruel.

“Would you like me to stand up and turn around so that you can take in the rest of me?” he taunted.

The color instantly returned to Evangeline’s cheeks. “We’re in a church.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” In one elegant move, the young man reached into the inner pocket of his ripped burgundy coat, pulled out a pure white apple, and took one bite. Dark red juice dripped from the fruit to his long, pale fingers and then onto the pristine marble steps.

“Don’t do that!” Evangeline hadn’t meant to yell. Although she wasn’t shy with strangers, she generally avoided quarrelling with them. But she couldn’t seem to help it with this crass young man. “You’re being disrespectful.”

“And you’re praying to an immortal who kills every girl he kisses. You really think he deserves any reverence?” The awful young man punctuated his words with another wide bite of his apple.

She tried to ignore him. She really did. But it was like some terrible magic had taken hold of her. Rather than marching off, Evangeline imagined the stranger taking her lips instead of his snack and kissing her with his fruit-sweet mouth until she died in his arms.

No. It couldn’t be…

“You’re staring again,” he purred.

Evangeline immediately looked away, turning back to the marble carving. Minutes ago, its lips alone had made her heart race, but now it just seemed like an ordinary statue, lifeless compared to this vicious young man.

“Personally, I think I’m far more handsome.” Suddenly, the young man stood right beside her.

Butterflies fluttered to life inside Evangeline’s stomach. Scared ones. All frantic wings and too-fast beats, warning her to get out of there, to run, to flee. But she couldn’t look away.

This close, he was undeniably attractive, and taller than she’d realized. He gave her a real smile, revealing a pair of dimples that briefly made him look more angel than devil. But she imagined even angels would need to beware of him. She could picture him flashing those deceptive dimples as he tricked an angel into losing its wings just so he could play with the feathers.

“It’s you,” she whispered. “You’re the Prince of Hearts.”

For eighteen years, my unibrow has saved me from being sold into a painful, terrifying death.

If I hadn’t come to the convent’s cemetery to be alone, I wouldn’t have noticed the silver gleam of the censer lying abandoned at the base of a tombstone. Every novice and sister carried one, a thurible on a chain to defend ourselves against the dead, and I recognized this censer by its shape and its tracery of black tarnish as belonging to Sophia, one of the youngest novices, brought to the convent only last winter. When I crouched down and touched it, the metal still felt warm. I had to press my wrist against it to be sure, because my scarred hands weren’t good at telling temperature.

London, 1821

“WAKE HIM UP,” said James, and the hard-faced shipman promptly lifted the wooden pail he held and threw its contents into the face of the man slumped and restrained in front of them.

Water slapped Marcus, splashing him into consciousness, coughing and gasping.

Even dripping, chained, and beaten, Marcus had a nobility to him, like a knight-gallant in a faded tapestry. The arrogance of the Stewards, thought James. It lingered, like the stinking miasma of the river, though Marcus was manacled to prohibit all movement, in the bowels of Simon Creen’s cargo ship.

Down here, the ship’s hold was like the insides of a whale ribbed in wood. The ceiling was low. There were no windows. Light came from the two lamps that the shipmen had hung when they had dragged Marcus in here, perhaps an hour ago. It was still dark outside, though Marcus would have no way to know that.

Marcus blinked wet eyelashes. His dark hair fell into his eyes in dripping strands. He wore the tattered remains of the livery of his order, its silver star stained with grime and blood.

James watched the horror rising in Marcus’s eyes as he realized he was still alive.

He knew. Marcus knew what was going to happen to him.

“So Simon Creen was right about the Stewards,” said James.

“Kill me.” Marcus’s throat scraped with gravel, as though seeing James meant a full understanding of what was happening. “Kill me. James. Please. If you ever felt anything for me.”

James dismissed the shipman beside him, and he waited until the man was gone, until there were no sounds but the creak of water and wood, and he and Marcus were alone.

Marcus’s hands were chained behind his back. He was sprawled awkwardly because of it, unable to right his balance, thick chains binding him with no give to the four heavy iron brackets of the ship. James’s eyes passed over the massive, immovable iron links.

“All those vows. You’ve never really lived at all. Don’t you wish you’d been with a woman? Or a man.”

“Like you?”

“Those rumors,” said James evenly, “aren’t true.”

“If you ever felt anything for any of us—”

“You strayed too far from the flock, Marcus.”

“I beg you,” said Marcus.

He said the words like there was a system of honor in the world, like all you had to do was appeal to a person’s better nature and goodness would prevail.

The self-righteousness of it stuck in James’s throat.

“Beg me, then. Beg me on your knees to kill you. Do it.”

James hadn’t thought Marcus would do it, but of course he did—he probably loved it, on his knees in an act of martyring self-sacrifice. Marcus was a Steward, had spent his life keeping vows and following rules, believing in words like noble and true and good.

Marcus moved awkwardly, unable to balance without his hands, finding a new posture within the chains with humiliating difficulty, his head lowering, his knees spreading on the planking.

“Please. James. Please. For what’s left of the Stewards.”

James looked down at that bowed head, that battered, handsome visage that was still naive enough to hope that there was a way out for him.

“I’m going to stand at Simon’s side,” said James, “while he ends the line of Stewards. I’m not going to stop until there’s no one left to stand in your Hall, until the last of your light flickers and goes out. And when darkness comes, I’ll be standing next to the one who will rule it all.” James’s voice was precise. “You think I felt something for you? You’ve forgotten who I am.”

Marcus looked up then, eyes flashing. It was the only warning James had. Marcus pulled, calling on all his strength so that his muscles strained and bulged, flesh pitted against iron—

—for a single terrifying moment the iron groaned, shifting—

Marcus made an agonized sound as his body gave out. A laugh of relief bubbled up in James’s throat.

Stewards were strong. But not strong enough.

Marcus was panting. His eyes were furious. Underneath that, he was terrified.

“You’re not Simon’s right hand,” said Marcus. “You’re his worm. His bootlicker. How many of us have you killed? How many Stewards will die because of you?”

“Everyone but you,” said James.

Marcus’s face turned ashen, and for a moment James thought he was going to beg again. He would have enjoyed that. But Marcus just stared back at him in thick silence. It was enough, for now. Marcus would beg again before this was over. James didn’t need to provoke it. He only needed to wait.

Marcus would beg and no one would come to help him here on Simon’s ship.

Satisfied, James turned to walk out up the wooden stairs that would lead him to the deck. He had his foot on the first step when Marcus’s voice rang out behind him.

“The boy’s alive.”

James felt hotly resentful that it made him stop. He forced himself not to turn, not to look at Marcus, not to take up the bait. He spoke in a calm voice as he continued on his way up the steps to the ship’s deck.

“That’s the trouble with you Stewards. You always think there’s hope.”

Juliette wished she’d never heard of The Hotel Splendor.

If she’d known then what she knew now, she would have ripped her sister’s reservation into bits and tossed the pieces in the fire.

But she didn’t, and so on the morning Clare turned twenty, Juliette tied a bright yellow ribbon around the envelope and waited by the door of the tiny flat they’d rented just a year earlier when Clare was taken on as a governess.

The two of them had dreamed about a night at the legendary hotel for years. It was a bright glimmer of hope in an otherwise dismal existence, whispered about during sleepless nights in the damp and drafty bedroom they shared at the children’s home. Juliette and Clare would lie, fingers entwined, under the questionable warmth of a threadbare quilt imagining the wonders they would encounter when they finally entered the grand double doors.

“If we ever make it to The Splendor, what will you wish for?” Juliette asked once.

Clare sighed softly in the dark, a contented sound that warmed Juliette from the inside out. Clare was a dreamer and a brighter future was her favorite dream.

“So many things,” Clare said. “It might be fun to be a princess. Or to ride an elephant through the streets of some faraway city.” The girls had been young then, and their dreams were young too.

Juliette wriggled her ice-cold toes beneath Clare’s calf. Her sister shivered but didn’t move away.

“You could do both.”

Clare laughed. “You’re right. I could.”

Their parents were long gone, and they had no friends besides each other, but at least they had this wild, glittering dream: a visit to an enchanted hotel that promised to turn their fantasies into realities—at least for the duration of their stay.

They’d heard the legends—everyone had. But was it true that The Splendor could make you feel like you were falling in love? Like you were singing on a stage in front of thousands of adoring fans? Like you were flying? Everyone said The Splendor could give you things you didn’t even know you wanted.

She hoped they were right.

When Clare finally made it home, her shoulders slumped with exhaustion, Juliette didn’t even wait for her to shrug off her coat before thrusting the envelope toward her.

“Happy birthday!”

Clare’s lips curved in a gentle smile. “You remembered.” The way she said it—both touched and surprised—made Juliette wonder if Clare had forgotten the date. Typical. She was always so focused on making sure Juliette was taken care of that she rarely thought of herself.

Clare worked a finger under the seam and tore open the envelope. She was likely expecting something homemade—a card scrawled in Juliette’s messy script or a coupon that could be redeemed to skip her turn doing the dishes. It was the only kind of gift the girls had ever been able to afford. But when Clare unfolded the creamy paper she froze. Her green eyes widened, and her chin dropped, shaping her lips into a soft pink circle. Then her entire expression melted into something between awe and ecstasy. Juliette’s throat got thick. She didn’t need The Splendor to feel like she was flying.

But then Clare’s gaze went to the broom closet and a flicker of panic sparked in her eyes. “Jules, how did you do this?”

“Don’t worry. I didn’t touch our rainy-day stash.” Juliette knew it would be the ultimate betrayal to dip into the fund the girls had carefully set aside for years. Someday money Clare called it each time she tucked another coin into the false bottom of a box filled with cleaning rags. Someday we’ll have a better life, Jules.

“Then how did you do this?” Clare asked.

Juliette gave her a small enigmatic smile. “I won’t give away my secrets.”

She didn’t want to tell Clare about the dozens of odd jobs she’d taken over the last year when she was supposed to be studying—taking in laundry for wealthy women who lived on the east side of town; making early-morning bread deliveries, the scent of yeast so tempting, it was all she could do to keep from tearing the loaves apart and devouring them herself; hours spent sanding newly carved rocking chairs at the carpentry shop, her lungs raw from breathing in sawdust.

She didn’t want anything to temper Clare’s joy.

“Do you like it?”

Clare’s eyes glimmered. “But . . . we were supposed to go together.”

Juliette’s heart seized. Had she miscalculated? Was Clare disappointed? But then Clare pulled Juliette into a fierce embrace, her tears mingling with Juliette’s own.

“I love it.”

It was one of the last times Clare touched Juliette. The last time she looked at her like they were a team.

The memory made Juliette’s chest ache, and she forcibly shoved Clare from her mind. A crust of anger had formed over her heart like a frozen lake in winter. But one wrong step—a too-tender memory of Clare, a moment too long thinking about how things used to be between them—and the ice would crack. Juliette would slip beneath the surface to the frigid shock of loss and betrayal lurking below. She could survive the anger, but she couldn’t survive the emotions it concealed. They would crush the air from her lungs.

And so, as she hurried through the streets of Belle Fontaine, heels clicking on the cobbles as she passed chocolate shops and cafés with striped awnings and delicate wrought iron tables, she fed her anger a different set of memories.

Clare was only at The Splendor for a week, but to Juliette, it felt like a lifetime. Their lives were a pair of clasped hands—connected, intertwined—and Juliette’s days were empty without her sister.

Each night, Juliette laid awake and thought of everything she wanted to tell Clare when they were reunited. She’d been carefully collecting bits of gossip like they were the small treasures she used to gather on her childhood walks—shiny rocks, abandoned coins, colorful leaves—stuffed in her pockets to share with her sister later. She saved stories the same way. A handsome stranger had visited Mrs. Cardon three days in a row at precisely noon, leaving an hour later with his hair and clothes noticeably disheveled. The corner bakery changed their recipe for scones—they were now studded with morsels of cranberries—and Juliette hadn’t decided how she felt about it yet. A robin had taken residence in the tree outside the girls’ bedroom window and insisted on waking Juliette with birdsong at an offensively early hour.

When the end of the week finally approached, Juliette waited at the bottom of Splendor Hill, breathless with anticipation.

She spotted Clare climbing out of the carriage, her expression wistful, as if she were waking from a particularly lovely dream.

Juliette called her name. Clare turned, scanning the crowd, but her gaze slid past Juliette. She craned her neck to look for the source of the noise.

“Clare!” Juliette shouted again, louder, more insistent.

Finally, Clare’s gaze settled on Juliette. Her brow furrowed, as if she were trying to place someone vaguely familiar. But then her eyes cleared, and she waved.

Juliette ran forward and flung herself into Clare’s arms.

Clare stiffened and pulled away.

Juliette’s ribs collapsed around her heart. She assumed Clare would be as desperate to see her as she was to see Clare.

Juliette blinked back tears. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Clare said. “Everything is fine.” And then, after a beat: “Why are you here?”

Juliette twisted her fingers together. A nervous habit. “I thought . . . I wanted to see you.” A storm of confusion raged in her chest. Was Clare angry with her? Did she have a terrible time at The Splendor? Why was she acting so strangely?

Clare gave a polite laugh. “Well now you’ve seen me. But I better get home. I have work tomorrow.”

She turned and walked away, leaving Juliette scrambling to catch up.

Juliette tried to rationalize away Clare’s behavior. Maybe she was tired. Maybe after living inside a fantasy, the return to real life was disorienting. Things would get better.

But they didn’t. They got worse.

Clare treated Juliette as if she were nothing more than an acquaintance, edging around her in their flat as if they were strangers who happened to share the same space. When Clare acknowledged Juliette at all, it was with a distant, infuriating politeness. It would be easier if Clare were openly hostile; at least a strong emotion—even a negative one—would reveal some depth of feeling. But Clare wasn’t angry at Juliette; she was simply indifferent.

And that was so much more painful.

FEBRUARY 2020

My husband doesn’t recognize my face.

I feel him staring at me as I drive, and wonder what he sees. Nobody else looks familiar to him either, but it is still strange to think that the man I married wouldn’t be able to pick me out in a police lineup.

I know the expression his face is wearing without having to look. It’s the sulky, petulant, “I told you so” version, so I concentrate on the road instead. I need to. The snow is falling faster now, it’s like driving in a whiteout, and the windscreen wipers on my Morris Minor Traveller are struggling to cope. The car—like me—was made in 1978. If you look after things, they will last a lifetime, but I suspect my husband might like to trade us both in for a younger model. Adam has checked his seat belt a hundred times since we left home, and his hands are balled into conjoined fists on his lap. The journey from London up to Scotland should have taken no more than eight hours, but I daren’t drive any faster in this storm. Even though it’s starting to get dark, and it seems we might be lost in more ways than one.

Can a weekend away save a marriage? That’s what my husband said when the counselor suggested it. Every time his words replay in my mind, a new list of regrets writes itself inside my head. To have wasted so much of our lives by not really living them, makes me feel so sad. We weren’t always the people we are now, but our memories of the past can make liars of us all. That’s why I’m focusing on the future. Mine. Some days I still picture him in it, but there are moments when I imagine what it would be like to be on my own again. It isn’t what I want, but I do wonder whether it might be best for both of us. Time can change relationships like the sea reshapes the sand.

He said we should postpone this trip when we saw the weather warnings, but I couldn’t. We both know this weekend away is a last chance to fix things. Or at least to try. He hasn’t forgotten that.

It’s not my husband’s fault that he forgets who I am.

Adam has a neurological glitch called prosopagnosia, which means he cannot see distinguishing features on faces, including his own. He has walked past me on the street on more than one occasion, as though I were a stranger. The social anxiety it inevitably causes affects us both. Adam can be surrounded by friends at a party and still feel like he doesn’t know a single person in the room. So we spend a lot of time alone. Together but apart. Just us. Face blindness isn’t the only way my husband makes me feel invisible. He did not want children—always said that he couldn’t bear the thought of not recognizing their faces. He has lived with the condition his whole life, and I have lived with it since we met. Sometimes a curse can be a blessing.

My husband might not know my face, but there are other ways he has learned to recognize me: the smell of my perfume, the sound of my voice, the feel of my hand in his when he still used to hold it.

Marriages don’t fail, people do.

I am not the woman he fell in love with all those years ago. I wonder whether he can tell how much older I look now? Or if he notices the infiltration of gray in my long blond hair? Forty might be the new thirty, but my skin is creased with wrinkles that were rarely caused by laughter. We used to have so much in common, sharing our secrets and dreams, not just a bed. We still finish each other’s sentences but these days we get them wrong.

“I feel like we’re going in circles,” he mutters beneath his breath, and for a moment I’m not sure whether he’s referring to our marriage or my navigational skills. The ominous-looking slate sky seems to reflect his mood, and it’s the first time he’s spoken for several miles. Snow has settled on the road ahead, and the wind is picking up, but it’s still nothing compared with the storm brewing inside the car.

“Can you just find the directions I printed out and read them again?” I say, trying, but failing, to hide the irritation in my voice. “I’m sure we must be close.”

Unlike me, my husband has aged impossibly well. His forty plus years are cleverly disguised by a good haircut, tanned skin, and a body shaped by an overindulgence in half-marathons. He has always been very good at running away, especially from reality.

Adam is a screenwriter. He started far below the bottom rung of Hollywood’s retractable ladder, not quite able to reach it on his own. He tells people that he went straight from school into the movie business, which is only an off-white lie. He got a job working at the Electric Cinema in Notting Hill when he was sixteen, selling snacks and tickets to films. By the time he was twenty-one, he’d sold the rights to his first screenplay. Rock Paper Scissors has never made it beyond development, but Adam got an agent out of the deal, and the agent got him work, writing an adaptation of a novel. The book wasn’t a best seller, but the film version—a low-budget British affair— won a Bafta, and a writer was born. It wasn’t the same as seeing his own characters come to life on screen—the roads to our dreams are rarely direct—but it did mean that Adam could quit selling popcorn and write full time.

Screenwriters don’t tend to be household names, so some people might not know his, but I’d be willing to bet money they’ve seen at least one of the films he’s written. Despite our problems, I’m so proud of everything he has achieved. Adam Wright built a reputation in the business for turning undiscovered novels into blockbuster movies, and he’s still always on the lookout for the next. I’ll admit that I sometimes feel jealous, but I think that’s only natural given the number of nights when he would rather take a book to bed. My husband doesn’t cheat on me with other women, or men, he has love affairs with their words.

Human beings are a strange and unpredictable species. I prefer the company of animals, which is one of the many reasons why I work at Battersea Dogs Home. Four-legged creatures tend to make better companions than those with two, and dogs don’t hold grudges or know how to hate. I’d rather not think about the other reasons why I work there; sometimes the dust of our memories is best left unswept.

The view beyond the windscreen has offered an ever-changing dramatic landscape during our journey. There have been trees in every shade of green, giant glistening lochs, snowcapped mountains, and an infinite amount of perfect, unspoiled space. I am in love with the Scottish Highlands. If there is a more beautiful place on Earth, I have yet to find it. The world seems so much bigger up here than in London. Or perhaps I am smaller. I find peace in the quiet stillness, and the remoteness of it all makes me giddy. We haven’t seen another soul for more than an hour, which makes this the perfect location for what I have planned.

We pass a stormy sea on our left and carry on north, the sound of crashing waves serenading us. As the winding road shrinks into a narrow lane, the sky—which has changed from blue, to pink, to purple, and now black—is reflected in each of the partially frozen lochs we pass. Further inland, a forest engulfs us. Ancient pine trees, dusted with snow, and taller than our house, are being bent out of shape by the storm as though they are matchsticks. The wind wails like a ghost outside the car, constantly trying to blow us off course, and when we slide a little on the icy road, I grip the steering wheel so tight that the bones in my fingers seem to protrude through my skin. I notice my wedding ring. A solid reminder that we are still together, despite all the reasons we should perhaps be apart. Nostalgia is a dangerous drug, but I enjoy the sensation of happier memories flooding my mind. Maybe we’re not as lost as we feel. I steal a glance at the man sitting beside me, wondering whether we could still find our way back to us. Then I do something I haven’t done for a long time, and reach to hold his hand.

“Stop!” he yells.

It all happens so fast. The blurred, snowy image of a stag standing in the middle of the road ahead, my foot slamming on the brake, the car swerving and spinning before finally skidding to a halt just in front of the deer’s huge horns. It blinks twice in our direction before calmly walking away as if nothing happened, disappearing into the woods. Even the trees look cold.

My heart is thudding inside my chest as I reach for my handbag. My trembling fingers find my purse and keys and almost all other contents before locating my inhaler. I shake it and take a puff.

“Are you okay?” I ask, before taking another.

“I told you this was a bad idea,” Adam replies.

I have bitten my tongue so many times already on this trip, it must be full of holes.

“I don’t remember you having a better one,” I snap.

“An eight-hour drive for a weekend away . . .”

“We’ve been saying for ages that it might be nice to visit the Highlands.”

“It might be nice to visit the moon, too, but I’d rather we talked about it before you booked us on a rocket. You know how busy things are for me right now.”

“Busy” has become a trigger word in our marriage. Adam wears his busyness like a badge. Like a Boy Scout. It is something he is proud of: a status symbol of his success. It makes him feel important, and makes me want to throw the novels he adapts at his head.

“We are where we are because you’re always too busy,” I say through gritted, chattering teeth. It’s so cold in the car now, I can see my own breath.

“I’m sorry, are you suggesting it’s my fault that we’re in Scotland? In February? In the middle of a storm? This was your idea. At least I won’t have to listen to your incessant nagging once we’ve been crushed to death by a falling tree, or died from hypothermia in this shit-can car you insist on driving.”

We never bicker like this in public, only in private. We’re both pretty good at keeping up appearances and I find people see what they want to see. But behind closed doors, things have been wrong with Mr. and Mrs. Wright for a long time.

“If I’d had my phone, we’d be there by now,” he says, rummaging around in the glove compartment for his beloved mobile, which he can’t find. My husband thinks gadgets and gizmos are the answer to all of life’s problems.

“I asked if you had everything you needed before we left the house,” I say.

“I did have everything. My phone was in the glove compartment.”

“Then it would still be there. It’s not my job to pack your things for you. I’m not your mother.”

I immediately regret saying it, but words don’t come with gift receipts and you can’t take them back. Adam’s mother is at the top of the long list of things he doesn’t like to talk about. I try to be patient while he continues searching for his phone, despite knowing he’ll never find it. He’s right. He did put it in the glove compartment. But I took it out before we left home this morning and hid it in the house. I plan to teach my husband an important lesson this weekend and he doesn’t need his phone for that.

Fifteen minutes later, we’re back on the road and seem to be making progress.

Adam squints in the darkness as he studies the directions I printed off—unless it’s a book or a manuscript, anything written on paper instead of a screen seems to baffle him.

“You need to take the first right at the next roundabout,” he says, sounding more confident than I would have expected.

We are soon reliant on the moon to light our way and hint at the rise and fall of the snowy landscape ahead. There are no streetlights, and the headlights on the Morris Minor barely light the road in front of us. I notice that we are low on petrol again, but haven’t seen anywhere to fill up for almost an hour. The snow is relentless now, and there has been nothing but the dark outlines of mountains and lochs for miles.

When we finally see a snow-covered old sign for Blackwater, the relief in the car is palpable. Adam reads the last set of directions with something bordering on enthusiasm.

“Cross the bridge, turn right when you pass a bench overlooking the loch. The road will bend to the right, leading into the valley. If you pass the pub, you’ve gone too far and missed the turning for the property.”

“A pub dinner might be nice later,” I suggest.

Neither of us says anything when the Blackwater Inn comes into view in the distance. I turn off before we reach the pub, but we still get close enough to see that its windows are boarded up. The ghostly building looks as though it has been derelict for a long time.

The winding road down into the valley is both spectacular and terrifying. It looks like it has been chiseled out of the mountain by hand. The track is barely wide enough for our little car, and there’s a steep drop on one side with not a single crash barrier.

“I think I can see something,” Adam says, leaning closer to the windscreen and peering into the darkness. All I can see is a black sky and a blanket of white covering everything beneath it.

“Where?”

“There. Just beyond those trees.”

I slow down a little as he points at nothing. But then I notice what looks like a large white building all on its own in the distance.

“It’s just a church,” he says, sounding defeated.

“That’s it!” I say, reading an old wooden sign up ahead. “Blackwater Chapel is what we’re looking for. We must be here!”

“We’ve driven all this way to stay in . . . an old church?”

“A converted chapel, yes, and I did all the driving.”

I slow right down, and follow the snow-covered dirt track that leads away from the single-lane road and into the floor of the valley. We pass a tiny thatched cottage on the right—the only other building I can see for miles—then we cross a small bridge and are immediately confronted by a flock of sheep. They are huddled together, eerily illuminated by our headlights, and blocking our path. I gently rev the engine, and try tapping the car horn, but they don’t move. With their eyes glowing in the darkness they look a little supernatural. Then I hear the sound of growling in the back of the car.

Bob—our giant black Labrador—has been quiet for most of the journey. At his age he mostly likes to sleep and eat, but he is afraid of sheep. And feathers. I’m scared of silly things too, but I am right to be. Bob’s growling does nothing to scare the herd. Adam opens the car door without warning, and a flurry of snow immediately blows inside, blasting us from all directions. I watch as he climbs out, shields his face, then shoos the sheep, before opening a gate that had been hidden from view behind them. I don’t know how Adam saw it in the dark.

He climbs back into the car without a word, and I take my time as we trundle the rest of the way. The track is dangerously close to the edge of the loch and I can see why they named this place Blackwater. As I pull up outside the old white chapel, I start to feel better. It’s been an exhausting journey, but we made it, and I tell myself that everything will be okay as soon as we get inside.

Stepping out into a blizzard is a shock to the system. I wrap my coat around me, but the icy cold wind still knocks the air out of my lungs and the snow pummels my face. I get Bob from the boot, and the three of us trudge through the snow toward two large gothic-looking wooden doors. A converted chapel seemed romantic at first. Quirky and fun. But now that we’re here, it does feel a bit like the opening of our own horror film.

The chapel doors are locked.

“Did the owners mention anything about a key box?” Adam asks.

“No, they just said that the doors would be open,” I say through chattering teeth.

I stare up at the imposing white building, shielding my eyes from the unrelenting snow, and take in the sight of the thick white stone walls, bell tower, and stained-glass windows. Bob starts to growl again, which is unlike him, but perhaps there are more sheep or other animals in the distance? Something that Adam and I just can’t see?

“Maybe there is another door around the back?” Adam suggests.

“I hope you’re right. The car already looks like it might need digging out of the snow.”

We traipse toward the side of the chapel, with Bob leading the way, straining on his lead as though tracking something. Although there are endless stained-glass windows, we don’t find any more doors. Despite the front of the building being illuminated by exterior lights—the ones we could see from a distance—inside, it’s completely dark. We carry on, heads bowed against the relentless weather, until we have come full circle.

“What now?” I ask.

But Adam doesn’t answer.

I look up, shielding my eyes from the snow, and see that he is staring at the front of the chapel. The huge wooden doors are now wide open.

The baby is starting to grumble. Kim sits still in her chair and holds her breath. It’s taken her all night to get him to sleep. It’s Friday, a sultry midsummer’s night, and normally she’d be out with friends at this time. Eleven o’clock; she’d be at the bar getting in the last round for the road. But tonight she’s in joggers and a t-shirt, her dark hair tied up in a bun, contacts out, glasses on, and a glass of lukewarm wine on the coffee table that she poured herself earlier and hasn’t had a chance to drink.

She clicks the volume down on the TV using the remote and listens again.

There it is, the very early outposts of crying, a kind of dry, ominous chirruping.

Kim has never really liked babies. She liked her own well enough, but did find the early years testing and ill-suited to her sensibilities. From the first night that both her children slept through the night, Kim has placed a very—possibly disproportionately—high value on an unbroken night. She had her kids young and easily had time enough and room in her heart for another one or two. But she could not face the prospect of sleepless nights again. For years she has protected her sleep vigilantly with the help of eye masks and ear plugs and pillow sprays and huge tubs of melatonin that her friend brings back for her from the States.

And then, just over twelve months ago, her teenage daughter, Tallulah, had a baby. And now Kim is a grandmother at the age of thirty- nine and there is a crying baby in her house again, soon, it feels, so soon, after her own babies stopped crying.

For the most part, despite it happening ten years before she was ready for it, having a grandson has been blessing after blessing. His name is Noah and he has dark hair like Kim, like both of Kim’s children (Kim only ever really liked babies with dark hair; blond-haired babies freak her out). Noah has eyes that oscillate between brown and amber depending on the light and he has solid legs and solid arms with circlets of fat at the wrists. He’s easy to smile and laugh and he’s happy to entertain himself, some- times for as long as half an hour at a time. Kim looks after him when Tallulah goes to college and she occasionally gets a kick of panic in her gut at the realization that she has not heard him make a noise for a few minutes. She rushes to his high chair or to the swing seat or to the corner of the sofa to check that he is still alive and finds him deep in thought whilst turning the pages of a fabric book.

Noah is a dreamy baby. But he does not like to sleep and Kim finds this darkly stressful.

At the moment Tallulah and Noah live here with Kim, alongside Zach, Noah’s father. Noah sleeps between them in Tallulah’s double bed and Kim puts in her ear plugs and plays some white noise on her smart phone and is generally saved from the night-time cacophony of Noah’s sleeplessness.

But tonight Zach has taken Tallulah out on what they’re calling a “date night” which sounds strangely middle-aged for a pair of nineteen- year-olds. They’ve gone to the very pub that Kim would normally be sitting in tonight. She slipped Zach a twenty-pound note as they were leaving and told them to have fun. It’s the first time they’ve been out as a couple since before Noah was born. They split up while Tallulah was pregnant and got back together again about six months ago with Zach pledging to be the best dad in the world. And so far, he’s been true to his word.

Noah’s crying has kicked in properly now and Kim sighs and gets to her feet.

As she does so her phone buzzes with a text message. She clicks it and reads.

Mum, there’s some ppl here from college, they asked us back to theirs. Just for an hour or so. Is that OK? 

Then, as she’s typing a reply, another message follows immediately.

Is Noah OK?

Noah is fine, she types. Good as gold. Go and have fun. Stay as long as you like. Love you.

Kim goes upstairs to Noah’s cot, her heart heavy with the prospect of another hour of rocking and soothing and sighing and whispering in the dark while the moon hangs out there in the balmy midsummer sky, which still holds pale smudges of daylight, and the house creaks emptily and other people sit in pubs. But as she approaches him, the moonlight catches the curve of his cheek and she sees his eyes light up at the sight of her, hears his breath catch with relief that someone has come and sees his arms reach up to her.

She collects him up and places him against her chest and says, “What’s all the fuss now, baby boy, what’s all the fuss?” and her heart suddenly expands and contracts with the knowledge that this boy is a part of her and that he loves her, that he is not seeking out his mother, he is content for her to come to him in the dark of night to comfort him. She takes Noah into the living room and sits him on her lap. She gives him the remote control to play with; he loves to press the but- tons, but Kim can tell he’s too tired to press buttons, he wants to sleep. As he grows heavy on top of her, she knows she should put him back into his cot, good sleep hygiene, good habits, all of that, but now Kim is tired too and her eyes grow heavy and she pulls the throw from the sofa across her lap and adjusts the cushion behind her head and she and Noah fall silently into a peaceful slumber.

Kim awakes suddenly several hours later. The brief midsummer night is almost over and the sky through the living room window is shimmering with the first blades of hot morning sun. She straightens her neck and feels all the muscles shout at her. Noah is still heavy with sleep and she gently adjusts him so that she can reach her phone. It’s four twenty in the morning.

She feels a small blast of annoyance. She knows she told Tallulah to stay out as late as she likes, but this is madness. She brings up Tallulah’s number and calls it. It goes straight to voicemail so she brings up Zach’s number and calls it. Again, it goes to voicemail.

Maybe she thinks, maybe they came in in the night and saw Noah asleep on top of her and decided that it would be nice to have the bed to themselves. She pictures them peering at her around the door of the living room and taking off their shoes, tiptoeing up the stairs and jumping into the empty bed in a tangle of arms and legs and playful, drunken kisses.

Slowly, carefully, she tucks Noah into herself and gets off the sofa. She climbs the stairs and goes to the door of Tallulah’s room. It’s wide open, just as she left it at eleven o’clock the night before when she came to collect Noah. She lowers him gently into his cot and miraculously, he does not stir. Then she sits on the side of Tallulah’s bed and calls her phone again.

Once more it goes straight to voicemail. She calls Zach. It goes to voicemail. She continues this ping-pong game for another hour. The sun is fully risen now, it is morning, but too early to call anyone else. So Kim makes herself a coffee and cuts herself a slice of bread off the farmhouse loaf she always buys Tallulah for the weekend and eats it with butter, and honey bought from the beekeeper down the road who sells it from his front door, and she waits and waits for the day to begin.

I was talking to a woman in Ruskin Court, and she said she’s on a diet,” says Joyce, finishing her glass of wine. “She’s eighty-two!”

“Walkers make you look fat,” says Ron. “It’s the thin legs.”

“Why diet at eighty-two?” says Joyce. “What’s a sausage roll going to do to you? Kill you? Well, join the queue.”

The Thursday Murder Club has concluded its latest meeting. This week they have been looking at the cold case of a Hastings newsagent who murdered an intruder with a crossbow. He’d been arrested, but then the media had got involved, and the consensus was that a man should be allowed to protect his own shop with a crossbow, for goodness’ sake, and he walked free, head held high.

A month or so later, police had discovered that the intruder was dating the newsagent’s teenage daughter, and the newsagent had a long record of assault, but at that point everybody had moved on. It was 1975, after all. No CCTV, and no one wanting to make a fuss.

“Do you think a dog might be good company?” asks Joyce. “I thought I might either get a dog or join Instagram.”

“I would advise against it,” says Ibrahim.

“Oh, you’d advise against everything,” says Ron.

“Broadly, yes,” agrees Ibrahim.

“Not a big dog, of course,” says Joyce. “I haven’t got the Hoover for a big dog.”

Joyce, Ron, Ibrahim, and Elizabeth are enjoying lunch at the restaurant that sits at the heart of the Coopers Chase community. There is a bottle of red and a bottle of white on their table. It is around a quarter to twelve.

“Don’t get a small dog, though, Joyce,” says Ron. “Small dogs are like small men: always got a point to prove. Yapping it up, barking at cars.”

Joyce nods. “Perhaps a medium dog, then? Elizabeth?”

“Mmm, good idea,” replies Elizabeth, though she is not really listening. How could she be, after the letter she received last night?

She’s picking up the main points, of course. Elizabeth always stays alert, because you never know what might fall into your lap. She has heard all sorts over the years. A snippet of conversation in a Berlin bar, a loose-lipped Russian sailor on shore leave in Tripoli. In this instance, on a Thursday lunchtime in a sleepy Kent retirement village, it seems that Joyce wants a dog, there is a discussion about sizes, and Ibrahim has doubts. But her mind is elsewhere.

The letter was slipped under Elizabeth’s door last night, by unseen hand.

Dear Elizabeth,

I wonder if you remember me? Perhaps you don’t, but without blowing my own trumpet, I imagine you might.

Life has worked its magic once more, and I discover, upon moving in this week, that we are now neighbors. What company I keep! You must be thinking they let in any old riffraff these days.

I know it has been some while since you last saw me, but I think it would be wonderful to renew our acquaintance after all these years.

Would you like to join me at 14 Ruskin Court for a drink?

A little housewarming? If so, how would three p.m. tomorrow?

No need to reply, I shall await with a bottle of wine regardless.

It really would be lovely to see you. So much to catch up on. An awful lot of water under the bridge, and so on.

I do hope you remember me, and I do hope to see you tomorrow.

Your old friend,

Marcus Carmichael

Elizabeth has been mulling it over ever since.

The last time she had seen Marcus Carmichael would have been late November, 1981, a very dark, very cold night by Lambeth Bridge, the Thames at low tide, her breath clouding in the freezing air. There had been a team of them, each one a specialist, and Elizabeth was in charge. They arrived in a white Transit van, shabby on the outside, seemingly owned by g. procter-windows, gutters, all jobs considered, but, on the inside, gleaming, full of buttons and screens. A young constable had cordoned off an area of the foreshore, and the pavement on the Albert Embankment had been closed.

Elizabeth and her team had clambered down a flight of stone steps, lethal with slick moss. The low tide had left behind a corpse, propped, almost sitting, against the near parapet of the bridge. Everything had been done properly; Elizabeth had made sure of that. One of her team had examined the clothing and rifled through the pockets of the heavy overcoat, a young woman from Highgate had taken photographs, and the doctor had recorded the death. It was clear the man had jumped into the Thames further upstream, or been pushed. That was for the coroner to decide. It would all be typed into a report by somebody or other, and Elizabeth would simply add her initials at the bottom. Neat and tidy.

The journey back up those slick steps with the corpse on a military stretcher had taken some time. A young constable, thrilled to have been called to help, had fallen and broken an ankle, which was all they needed. They explained they wouldn’t be able to call an ambulance for the time being, and he took it in fairly good part. He received an unwarranted promotion several months later, so no lasting harm was done.

Her little unit eventually reached the embankment, and the body was loaded into the white Transit van. all jobs considered.

The team dispersed, save for Elizabeth and the doctor, who stayed in the van with the corpse as it was driven to a morgue in Hampshire. She hadn’t worked with this particular doctor before-broad, red faced, a dark mustache turning gray-but he was interesting enough. A man you would remember. They’d discussed euthanasia and cricket until the doctor had dozed off.

Ibrahim is making a point with his wine glass. “I’m afraid I would advise against a dog altogether, Joyce-small, medium, or large-at your time in life.”

“Oh, here he comes,” says Ron.

“A medium dog,” says Ibrahim, “say a terrier, or a Jack Russell perhaps, would have a life expectancy of around fourteen years.”

“Says who?” asks Ron.

“Says the Kennel Club, in case you want to take it up with them, Ron. Would you like to take it up with them?”

“No, you’re all right.”

“Now, Joyce,” Ibrahim continues, “you are seventy-seven years old?”

Joyce nods. “Seventy-eight next year.”

“Well, that goes without saying, yes,” agrees Ibrahim. “So, at seventy-seven years old, we have to take a look at your life expectancy.”

“Ooh, yes?” says Joyce. “I love this sort of thing. I had my tarot done on the pier once. She said I was going to come into money.”

“Specifically, we have to look at the chances of your life expectancy exceeding the life expectancy of a medium dog.”

“It’s a mystery to me why you never got married, old son,” says Ron to Ibrahim, and takes the bottle of white wine from the cooler on the table. “With that silver tongue of yours. Top-up, anyone?”

“Thank you, Ron,” says Joyce. “Fill it to the brim to save having to do it again.”

Ibrahim continues. “A woman of seventy-seven has a fifty-one percent chance of living for another fifteen years.”

“This is jolly,” says Joyce. “I didn’t come into money, by the way.”

“So if you were to get a dog now, Joyce, would you outlive it? That’s the question.”

“I’d outlive a dog through pure spite,” says Ron. “We’d just sit in opposite corners of the room, staring each other out, and see who went first. Not me. It’s like when we were negotiating with British Leyland in ‘seventy-eight. The moment one of their lot went to the loo first, I knew we had ’em.” Ron knocks back more wine. “Never go to the loo first. Tie a knot in it if you have to.”

“Why do you care if I feel trapped?”

Hugo glanced at him. “Why wouldn’t I?”

He was so goddamn frustrating. “I don’t get you.”

“You don’t know me.” It wasn’t mean, just a statement of fact. Hugo held up his hands before Wallace could retort. “I know how that sounds. I’m not trying to be flippant, I promise.” He lowered his hands, looking down at the tray. The tea had cooled, the liquid dark. “It’s easy to let yourself spiral and fall. And I was falling for a long time. I tried not to, but I did. Things weren’t always like this. There wasn’t always a Charon’s Crossing. I wasn’t always a ferryman. I made mistakes.”

“You did?” Wallace didn’t know why he sounded so incredulous.

Hugo blinked slowly. “Of course I did. Regardless of what else I am or what I do, I’m still human. I make mistakes all the time.” He shook his head. “I try to be the best ferryman I can be because I know people are counting on me. I think that’s all anyone can ask for. I’ve learned from my mistakes, even as I continue to make new ones.”

“I don’t know if that makes me feel any better,” Wallace said.

Hugo laughed. “I can’t promise I won’t screw up somehow, but I want to make sure your time here is restful and calm. You deserve it, after everything.”

Wallace looked away. “You don’t know me.”

“I don’t,” Hugo said. “But that’s why we’re doing what we’re doing now. I’m learning about you so I know how best to help you.”

“I don’t want your help.”

“I know you think that,” Hugo said. “But I hope you realize that you don’t have to go through this alone. Can I ask you a question?”

“If I say no?”

“Then you say no. I’m not going to pressure you into something you’re not ready for.”

He didn’t know what else he had to lose. “Fine. Ask your question.”

“Did you have a good life?”

Wallace jerked his head up. “What?”

“Your life,” Hugo said. “Was it good?”

“Define good.”

“You’re hedging.”

He was, and he hated how easily Hugo saw that. It made his skin itch. He felt on display, showing things he didn’t think he’d ever be ready to show. He wasn’t obfuscating; he genuinely had never thought about it that way. He woke up. He went to work. He stayed at work. He did his job, and he did his job well. Sometimes he lost. Most times he didn’t. There was a reason the firm had been as successful as it was. What else was there to life aside from success?

Nothing, really.

Sure, he’d had no friends. No family. He had no partner, no one to grieve over him as he’d lain in an expensive coffin in the front of a ridiculous church, but that shouldn’t be the only measure of a life well-lived.

It was all about perspective. He’d done important things, and in the end, no one could have asked any more of him.

He said, “I lived.”

“You did,” Hugo said, still holding onto the teacup. “That doesn’t answer my question.”

Wallace scowled. “You’re not my therapist.”

“So you’ve said.” He lifted the cup and poured the tea out into the sink. It looked as if it pained him to do so. The dark liquid splattered against the sink before Hugo turned on the faucet and washed away the dregs.

“Is this… is this how you are with the others?”

Hugo switched off the faucet and set the teacup gently in the sink. “Everyone’s different, Wallace. There’s no one way to go about this, no uniform set of rules in place that can be applied to every single person like you who comes through my doors. That wouldn’t make sense because you’re not like everyone else, much like they’re not you.” He looked out the window about the sink. “I don’t know who or what you are yet. But I’m learning. I know you’re scared, and you have every right to be.”

“Damn right I am,” Wallace said. “How could I not be?”

Hugo smiled quietly as he turned toward Wallace. “That might be the most honest thing you’ve said since you got here. Would you look at that? You’re making progress.”

Soundcloud Audiobook 

Shizuka listened to the jingle of a passing ice cream truck. It was not every day that Shizuka felt fortunate to have been damned by Hell. But it did keep her from getting too shocked by life’s surprises. Space aliens at a donut shop? Why not? In fact, it was refreshing to meet someone else with secrets for a change.

“So, what do you look like, really?” Shizuka asked.

Lan looked away. When making first contact, it always came to this, didn’t it?

“Scary,” she finally said.

“Really?”

“Yes. Really scary.” Lan turned her gaze back to Shizuka. “Does it matter?”

Shizuka shrugged. “To be honest, I suppose by now I’d be pretty scary, too.”

“What do you mean?”

The sun was just beginning to drop in the sky, and the golden glow made Shizuka recall Technicolor, The Brady Bunch, and ABC After School Specials.

“I used to be a musician.”

Lan listened as Shizuka talked about a deal with a demon and a soul in exchange for souls. She listened as Shizuka spoke about a music she could barely articulate, a music that had eluded her for years.

Shizuka talked about how she had finally found it, that afternoon on this very bench, in a girl with a cheap violin, a tuning fork, a battered copy of Schradieck, and a huge bruise on her face.

And how she had been coming here as often as she could, feeding the ducks, hoping for that girl to return.

Lan tried to understand what Shizuka said. Some civilizations still might symbolically pledge to a family, a government, even an idea. The entire Tarn Republic declared itself a servant of peace in one of its final communications.

But Lan’s civilization had long evolved beyond believing in supernatural beings and souls and music. And, in her reality, no one would think to attach such importance, such meaning, to music.

Still, as Lan listened to Shizuka’s voice, it was as if her words had a faint and peculiar pull, giving Lan the tiniest desire to enter Shizuka’s reality as well.

Shizuka shivered. She realized she had told Donut Lady far more than she intended.

“We said too much, didn’t we?” she said.

Lan nodded.

“I could wipe your memory,” Lan offered. “Of course, I’d wipe mine out too. Just for this afternoon.”

“That would be awkward. And besides, I want to remember this.”

They finished tossing in the last few donuts, stood up and brushed off the crumbs and frosting.

“Plum-colored,” Lan said softly.

“What?”

“Our true forms,” Lan said. “We are plum-colored.”

“Plum-colored?”

“Yes. And our hair can be any color from orange to green. Though some of us have blue—mostly from the southern quadrant. My original hair is green.”

“I . . . see.”

“And we have two elbow joints. They would be here . . . and here.”

“What about your knees?”

“They are the same. Our patellar ligaments are more robust, however. Actually, all our ligaments are.”

“I see. And what else?”

“What else? You’re not horrified?”

Shizuka tried not to smile. “I’ll manage.”

“Yours must be a very open-minded species,” Lan said admiringly

Whatever Shizuka intended to say next would have to wait.

A girl was running to them in tears.

Eventually, Shizuka and Lan pieced together what happened.

“We should call your authorities?” Lan asked.

Shizuka shook her head. The police would only make this worse. “But we need to visit that pawnshop.”

Lan nodded. She pulled out her phone to message Shirley that she’d be late.

Shizuka turned to the girl.

“What’s your name?”

“K-Katrina Nguyen.”

“Okay, Katrina Nguyen, let’s get your violin.”

Pawnshops and musicians have a long history. Within so many pawnshops lay dreams lost, broken, never realized. Usually, a musician of Shizuka’s stature would have nothing to do with these places.

But Shizuka had never been overly concerned with the usual.

As Shizuka pulled up to the shop, Katrina pointed at the front window.

“That’s mine!” she cried. “Please get it back. I don’t have the money, but I’ll pay you back a little at a time, I swear . . .”

“Don’t worry,” Shizuka said. “Everything will be fine.”

No doubt, that was the same violin Shizuka had seen that day in El Molino Park. But while that instrument had been in perfect condition, this one had its E and A strings missing, as well as its tuning peg.

And the price tag read $450.

Katrina rushed to the owner and pointed to the window.

“That violin was stolen!”

“That’s what they all say,” the man behind the counter said, not looking up from his computer. “It’s a bit loved, but it’s a good violin. Four hundred fifty dollars.”

Before Katrina could reply, Lan cleared her throat.

“It’s damaged. Lower the price,” Lan said commandingly.

Shizuka was startled—so that was what a starship captain sounded like.

The owner blinked. “Maybe I can do four twenty-five, but that’s it. I believe the instrument was made in Germany.”

“You believe wrong,” Lan said. “Two hundred. Cash. It costs me at least two hundred to repair, and it’s still fair profit for you.”

“Three hundred.”

“Two hundred dollars. And a good Yelp review.”

She did not have to add that she could also write a bad one.

“Make it a good review,” he finally said.

Lan reached for her purse, but Shizuka held her arm and put her finger to her lips.

“I don’t think you understood what this girl said,” Shizuka said innocently. “This violin was stolen.”

“Of course she did. People say that all the—” The pawnshop owner looked at Shizuka and stopped cold.

Now it was Lan’s turn to be startled—the pawnshop owner was terrified.

“Surely, you’re not implying that she would lie to you?” Shizuka said sweetly.

“Uh, of course not.”

“The girl should have her violin back.”

“Y-yes, of course,” he stammered.

“And her case.”

“Yeah, sure. Case too.”

Katrina and Lan watched wordlessly as Shizuka inspected the violin.

“A peg is missing. Strings are missing. The bridge . . . what happened? Was it you?” Shizuka glared at the owner. “I can find out, you know.”

“No! I didn’t do anything! I swear it was like that when I got it!” He was in near hysterics. He pulled out a roll of cash and peeled off some bills. “This should pay for the damages. Please. J-just take it.”

“Thank you,” she said politely. “And I shall.”