Marcus sat in the front pew with his head down and his hands folded around a crumpled program. When Ethan and I entered, the church was half full, but still he seemed to sense my presence. He raised his head and looked back at me, and his gaze seemed to pierce through me. Kimiko turned in her seat to see who he was looking at.
Ethan and I started to take seats in the back, but Kimiko stood and waved us forward. I approached, at a loss for what I should say to her—what I could say, that would begin to put words to the loss that shrouded her.
“You were her best friend. You should sit up front,” Kimiko said firmly. Marcus made a soft sound and looked away. It seemed like they’d already had an argument about this, and Marcus had lost.
Cass arrived soon after, surrounded by her family—parents, Amanda, even Oscar in a suit that strained around his muscular frame and made him look like the punch line to a joke that hadn’t been written yet. Cass guided Amanda up to our pew, the others in tow. Oscar sat at the end and conspicuously didn’t look my way. Cass took a delicate seat next to me and pressed my arm in a comforting gesture—while giving Ethan a skeptical look.
Liv had always loved losing herself in the ritual. For me, it was like a fever haze, full of steps I half knew and words that made my lips and tongue feel clumsy. I stumbled through the prayers and hymns, losing the sense of myself as voices merged in recitation, only to jar free of the unity and feel all the more alone.
Kimiko spoke, and Marcus. They talked about Olivia’s artwork, her curiosity, her passion. They spoke of her troubles, obliquely, and I was glad that at least they didn’t pretend that part of her hadn’t existed. It wasn’t part of herself that she welcomed, but it had defined so much of her. She wouldn’t have been Olivia without having walked through the fire of her own mind.
To my surprise, Cass rose to speak when they were done. They hadn’t asked me. She stood at the lectern and cleared her throat, and I braced myself for the polished version of friendship I was sure she would paint.
“When I was five years old, I decided that Olivia Barnes was going to be my best friend,” Cass began. Her voice was clear and steady, but she gripped the paper on which her notes were written with a faintly trembling hand. “I wanted to be her savior, but the truth is that we rescued each other. Neither of us was the easiest person to be friends with. But no matter how many times we fought, we always made up.
“Olivia and I went through the usual ups and downs of friendship, but we also faced hardships that no one should. Some of those were inflicted on us by another—by evil that strayed into our community. And some of them came from within. Olivia wasn’t just troubled. She was at war with her own mind from the time we were very young. At first none of us saw it. She was quirky. She was odd. She was, to me, magical. Maybe if the horror of that summer had never occurred, she would have had more time to learn how to live with the lies her brain told her. Instead, she was suddenly lost in the woods, and none of us knew how to help her find the way out.
“Olivia believed in me in a way that no one else ever did. And I believed in her. But no amount of faith could fix Olivia. No amount of friendship. And in the end, I gave up. I gave up on her, and on being her friend. I failed her.”
She took a shuddering breath. She looked out at the congregation, and her eyes glimmered with unspent tears. “Olivia taught me to believe in magic. I can’t bring her back. But I can honor her, by seeing the magic in this world. She wouldn’t want us to dwell on the darkness, but the stars she saw within it. And that is what I’m going to do.”
She walked swiftly away from the podium and back to her seat, her muscles tense with the effort of keeping everything together. She sat beside me and grabbed my hand and Amanda’s, and gripped them both as the next speaker—an uncle—stood and made his way to the podium.
I squeezed her hand back and tried to breathe around the cold, white grief lodged in my throat.
Is this what Olivia wanted? I wondered. For you to be obsessed with her death, obsessed with the attack all over again? Suspecting your best friend?
Cass was right. It was the last thing Olivia would have wanted. She had wanted to find Persephone so we could bring her into the light, not to destroy us, to mire us in the past. But even as I thought it, I knew it didn’t matter. I couldn’t let go. I couldn’t stop.
I was going to see this through to the end, even if it destroyed me.
We held on to each other until the last strains of the final hymn faded. After the recessional, as everyone gathered up their things, Cass tugged me in close for a hug.
“Will you come by the house? We’re having a small gathering,” she said. I didn’t have to ask to know that the house meant her parents’ place, not hers. Her eyes cut over to Ethan, who had been pulled into conversation with Marsha in the pew behind us. “Friends and family only. I don’t think a reporter—”
“I understand,” I said. Ethan would be nothing but respectful, but it was the last thing anyone needed today. And things had been odd between us since Cass’s visit to the motel, a moodiness settling over Ethan that I hadn’t seen before—and that served to remind me how little I actually knew him. “I’ll drop Ethan off at the motel and come right over?”
“Yes. Good,” she said.
“Mom?” Amanda said. “We’re going now.” She gave me a neutral look, like she was trying to remember what she thought of me. She looked so much like Cass at that age—the same wheat-colored hair, the same slender nose and big eyes. Eleven years old. Exactly the same age we had been that summer. It made my breath catch.
As Cass moved away, Amanda went with her, sneaking one last glance back at me. I gave her a quick, friendly smile and then joined Ethan as we trailed out of the church.
Halfway to the exit, I caught sight of Cody. He was standing with an older couple I vaguely recognized as his parents, along with a heavily pregnant, elegant-looking Latina woman I assumed was his wife. He saw me and lifted a hand in greeting, and his wife turned to look at me. Her eyes widened a little in recognition—I was rather distinctive, I supposed—and she broke into a dazzling smile, waggling her fingers in a wave before turning back to the conversation.
That was not a reaction I was used to. The open-mouthed oohhhh of recognition, the borderline leering interest, the instinctive disgust, those I’d gotten to know intimately over the years. A smile that bright usually wasn’t meant for me.
“I’m going to drop you off,” I said. “Cass’s folks are hosting a gathering—a reception, I guess? I’m going to go.”
“And you’d rather go alone,” Ethan said.
“It’s not that I don’t want you there,” I said quickly.
“But for everyone else, I’m not going to be Naomi’s boyfriend Ethan, I’m going to be Ethan that nosy podcast guy,” he said.
“Is that what you are?”
“A nosy podcast guy? Only when I’m working,” he said.
“My boyfriend.”
“Ah.” He squinted off toward the road. “Slip of the tongue. What would be more accurate? Paramour? Gentleman caller? Booty call?”
“I like gentleman caller,” I said, and decided not to think about why boyfriend sounded so appealing. We got into the car, and I started up the engine. I idled a moment while an elderly woman made her slow way past the back bumper.