The Unmaking of June Farrow(86)

Eamon was quiet as I tried to work it out.

I set the tip of the pencil back down on the paper, filling it in.

1951—June (age 34) returns



“This is the one that doesn’t make sense. Why would I write down a year in the future?”

“Maybe you were planning to come back.”

I shook my head. “1950 was my third time to cross, which means I knew I couldn’t go back through the door.”

“Well, in a way, you did come back.”

That’s what worried me—the five-year overlap, or loophole, as Esther had called it.

I closed my eyes, running over every piece of the puzzle I had. There was something about all of this that felt planned, like Eamon said.

“You said before that I promised you I wouldn’t go back through the door? Is that because you thought I was going to?”

“I don’t know what I thought.”

“There had to be a reason you made me promise. What was it?”

Eamon stared at the paper on the table, arms crossed over his chest.

“It started when you found out you were pregnant,” he began. “You didn’t want children because you knew you would have a daughter and that she would go through what you had. So, when we got married, we agreed. But things didn’t go as planned. I thought you wouldn’t want to have the baby, but you did.”

This changes everything.

The words floated to the surface of my thoughts. I could hear my own voice saying them.

“You changed your mind because you wanted her. And then, when she was born, you became so focused on breaking this . . .” He searched for the word. “Curse. You wouldn’t accept that you couldn’t fix it.”

This changes everything. You know that, right?

“This is what Esther was talking about,” I said, remembering. “When she said that this is how it all started last time?”

He nodded. “The more time that went by, the more obsessed you became. You were coming up with all kinds of theories on how to keep Annie from getting sick, and some of them involved trying to go back through the door. I was worried. We all were. You weren’t well, and I was afraid that you were going to do something dangerous.”

Maybe I had, I thought.

You weren’t well.

That’s what Esther had said about Susanna.

“You think that’s what happened, don’t you?” I guessed. “You think I tried to break the curse and failed.”

“Even if you did,” He paused. “That doesn’t answer the question of where you went.”

“No, but it answers the question of why.” I looked up at him.

As soon as I thought it, the cold, biting reality sank in. There was nothing to find because this trail of breadcrumbs led nowhere. By the time I went through that door, my mind could have been gone in the way Susanna’s was before she died. Maybe I’d already lost myself completely.

I stared into space, that sickening feeling in my gut making my heart kick up again. For the first time, it was sinking in that somewhere in time, I was gone. Really gone. The thought made me feel the frost-laced breath of death on my skin.

I stood up from the table, a little too quickly, and the pencil rolled, hitting the floor. I needed to breathe. To pull air into my lungs and feel the wind on my face. I needed to get out of here.

I went through the open back door and down the steps, pushing my hands into my hair. I was too cold now, even with the humid summer heat, a chill aching deep in the center of my bones. The earth was spinning, and I could feel it, the motion of the entire planet swirling and making my head spin.

I’d been trying to understand how I could have left Annie, but I hadn’t considered that she was the reason why. I’d broken vows for her. Ones I’d made to myself and ones I’d made to Eamon. There was nothing that could have prepared me for a love like that, to sit and watch a dying thing grow. The fate of the Farrows was Annie’s fate, too. Maybe I’d risked everything to change it.

I turned in a circle, scanning the edge of the field for her, but she wasn’t there.

“Annie?” I called out, lifting a hand over my eyes to block the sun. She wasn’t outside the barn or at the paddock fence, either.

“Annie!” I walked toward the garden, leaning over the fence, but it was empty.

Eamon came down the back steps, watching me.

“Where is she? Did she come in the house?”

“No.” His eyes were on the road now, tracing the edges of the farm.

My steps quickened as I headed for the barn, and I yanked the heavy sliding door open, ignoring Callie’s insistent reach over the fence.

“Annie?” I stepped inside, looking for her. “Annie!”

The stalls and the hayloft were silent.

When I came out of the barn, Eamon was jogging toward me from the house.

“She’s not in there,” I panted, my voice getting frantic now.

Eamon cupped his hands around his mouth. “Annie!” His deep voice carried over the fields, farther than mine could travel. We both stood frozen, listening.

“Where is she?” I studied the road. Had I seen a car pass by? “Eamon, where is she?”

My hand gripped onto his sleeve so tightly that pain pierced through the bones in my fingers. I couldn’t feel my heartbeat anymore.