Frank is there to catch her. He walks beside her, arm around her shoulders, his father’s flashlight in the other hand. He shines it on the ground just ahead of Maya so she won’t trip over anything as they make their way back down the abandoned road. The forest is dark. “What—what’s happening?” she asks, but her voice is lost beneath the drumming of rain on leaves, branches, and earth. The rain soaks her clothes, running in rivulets from the frayed hem of her shorts.
Her hands feel raw, and when she looks at them, she sees dirt. There’s dirt on her palms and knees. She stops walking, shrugs out from under the weight of Frank’s arm. Turns to face him.
He looks worried. “What is it?” His voice is measured, but his jaw is tight, as if he’s more upset than he’s letting on. He doesn’t try to shield himself from the rain plastering his hair to his scalp.
“What the hell is going on?” she asks.
He looks confused.
She can’t stop shivering.
He opens his arms to her, offering warmth, but she flinches away from his touch, and he looks hurt. But this time she’s sure of it. This time there’s dirt on her hands and knees, and the fact that she doesn’t know how it got there chills her more than the cold rain.
“What did you do to me?”
The question takes him aback. He raises his hands as if to show her they’re empty, that he doesn’t mean her harm. “You said you wanted to leave,” he says. “Asked me to walk you back to your car, so that’s what I’m doing.”
Bewildered, she looks back over her shoulder, as if the way they’d come might hold a clue to the last few minutes, but all she sees is the overgrown road disappearing into dark woods. “Why can’t I remember?” she asks. The wind picks up, sharpening the rain. She shouldn’t be here. Aubrey was right—Frank is weird—and for the first time, she senses he could be dangerous.
She turns and continues walking in the direction they’ve been going, hoping that it is, in fact, the way back to her car.
“Wait, Maya.” But the note of pleading in his voice makes her walk faster. He follows her, lighting her path even as she tries to get away from him. She breaks into a run as soon as she sees the dark outline of his father’s house, the rain pounding, her sneakers kicking up mud. She’s soaked and out of breath as she crosses the wild lawn to the street where her car is parked and unlocks her door with trembling hands. She turns back, expecting to see Frank, but now he’s gone, and the only sound is rain and her own heaving breath and heart.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Thanks for this, Maya texted Steven at nine a.m., which felt like the earliest she could reasonably text someone she didn’t know very well.
It’s beautiful, she added, referring to Cristina’s painting as well as to the warm home it portrayed. Maya had forgotten. These days, when she thought of Frank’s cabin, she thought only of the time she had lost, dirt on her knees and hands, and fear as she ran through the woods to her car.
What she’d forgotten was the wonder of entering Frank’s cabin for the first time, but Cristina’s painting reminded her, the loving details of the fireplace, the natural wooden beams. Somehow, though she often dreamed of it, Maya hardly remembered （while awake） how the place looked and all the thoughts that had flown through her head as she first took it in. Now the table in the painting brought back the memory of sitting across from Frank over bowls of some soup he’d made. That tantalizing smell, her sudden hunger—it was as if the place had cast a spell.
But Maya never tried the soup, did she?
Then—as now—her father’s story leapt to mind.
This time it came to her in the form of the hymn. So they mingled their deceit with me . . . and they made me eat their food . . . I forgot I was the son of kings.
And as it had then, the story felt like a warning. What was it she’d forgotten? The last thing she remembered of that night—just before finding herself in the rain—was thinking of Pixán’s true home and the beginning of a realization that never came because Frank put a stop to it.
Her phone pinged, disrupting her train of thought.
It was Steven; he’d responded to her text with a thumbs-up.
Wondering if you might be around to talk about this later? she wrote back. Maybe I could buy you a drink?
She waited.
She still hadn’t slept. She walked around the neighborhood on aching legs, hoping to exhaust herself, and her body was certainly tired enough, but her mind and heart galloped on. The streets were cold and quiet. The snow in the gutters had melted and frozen again into a jagged slush the same gray as the sky.
Dan hadn’t written back, and now it had been two days. Maya would have been worried if his social media accounts weren’t public, or rather she’d have been a different kind of worried. She told herself that at least she knew he was okay and tried to leave it at that. Because she couldn’t let herself think about his silence and what it meant. Not now. Back home, she shivered on the floor of the shower, cloaked in steam, but she couldn’t warm up. She told herself this had to be the worst of it. Her withdrawal could only get better from here. She crawled into bed afterward and passed out for forty-five minutes, only to jolt up at the sound of her phone.
Sure, Steven had texted back.
Maya disentangled herself from the sheets wrapped around her torso and typed, Great! What time?
I get off work at five. How’s Patrick’s? Patrick’s was the pub around the corner from the museum.
Sure! Maya texted back. Thank you!
She ventured out of the dim Airbnb room to find her mom putting up a Christmas tree in the living room.
“There you are!” Brenda said, smiling. “Just in time to help with decorations.”
Maya scowled.
Her mom flinched. They had always decorated the tree together when Maya was young. A crate of ornaments sat on the floor, silver tinsel spilling through the slats. Brenda was doing all she could to make amends with her daughter. Other than apologize, it seemed.
Maya was still mad but unwilling to argue further. Her mom wasn’t the only person who could pretend like nothing was wrong. “I have plans,” she said. “I’m getting together with Erica O’Rourke.”
“Erica from the school newspaper? Didn’t realize you were still in touch.”
Maya wasn’t. She hadn’t kept in touch with anyone from high school beyond the occasional email, but Erica was someone she had been friendly with and who still lived in town. A plausible lie. “We’re going for coffee. Catching up.”
Her mom peered at her over teal reading glasses.
Maya had washed her hair and clothes and put on makeup. She felt almost refreshed after her nap.
“Why don’t I drive you?”
“No,” Maya said a little too quickly. If her mom had any idea what she was up to, she’d get on the phone with Dr. Barry.
Brenda narrowed her eyes.
“I could use the walk is all. We’re meeting at that new café on North Street—it’s less than a mile.” She didn’t wait for her mom to try to stop her. “I’ll only be a few hours,” she said as she slipped out the door.
* * *
— Patrick’s was an Irish pub that had been around as long as Maya could remember. Blessedly dark inside, with exposed brick walls and a long row of beers on tap. It smelled like onion rings. Maya was a few minutes early, so she ordered an extra-dry martini, even though she was still hungover from last night’s gin. Alcohol was the one thing she knew would loosen the vise that withdrawal had clamped around her head. She took her martini to a small table in the corner and drank most of it in a few gulps that burned the whole way down, then faded to a pleasant warmth. The bar was quiet, most of the booths empty. Classic rock played on the speakers. She raised a hand as Steven walked through the door.