“I—” Olivia began.
“We need time to figure things out,” Cass insisted. She glanced pointedly over at me, looking for backup. “We have to think about the consequences.”
I took a swallow of my wine. Liv was right—it was long past time to tell someone about Persephone. Someone out there had to be looking for her. Mourning her.
But this wasn’t something to do on a whim. We needed time to think.
I needed time to think. Because Cass was right—I didn’t want people asking too many questions about that day in the woods. Persephone was a secret we all shared, but I had my own secrets, too.
“Please,” Olivia said, her eyes fixed on her lap. There was an ache in my chest. I couldn’t get a full breath.
“Let’s just take a beat here,” I said, hating myself for it. “Cass is right. We need to make sure we’re going into this clear-eyed.”
Olivia gave a tiny nod. She’d closed in on herself.
Cass sighed. “I’m sorry, Liv. You sprang this on us, and … and maybe you’re right, and it’s time. But if we decide to do this, let’s be smart about it. I can make some calls, and we can talk to a lawyer, and at least make sure we wouldn’t be opening ourselves up to some kind of liability. Okay?”
“Okay.” It was barely a sound, it was so quiet. She lifted her eyes to the level of the counter, and even that seemed like a monumental effort. Guilt worked its slick way through my gut. “Do you want to know her name?”
“No,” Cass said immediately, and I was glad. Because neither did I. I wanted her to stay Persephone. Stay a myth, a story. Stay our secret. The instant she had a name, we’d have to admit that she was a person.
That she was more than the bones we’d found in the forest, and the magic we’d made from them.
We talked about inconsequential things after that. Cass’s daughter, Amanda; the lodge; my work. Cass and I kept up the conversation while Liv sat silently, picking at the skin at the base of her thumb. Finally I put my hand on her arm.
“I should probably get going,” I said. “Liv, can I give you a lift home?”
“Already?” Cass asked, more out of obligation than anything. We were all eager to call the strained gathering to a close.
“I’m wiped from that drive, and I should really drop by and see my dad,” I said.
“We’ll talk soon,” Cass promised, and enveloped us each in a hug before letting us go. She kept her hand on my arm a moment longer than she needed to, giving me a look that I knew well. The Make sure Liv’s okay look. She squeezed my arm one last time before letting me go.
Liv trailed along after me and got into the passenger seat without comment. She sat there, picking at that patch of dried skin. Liv didn’t drive. It wasn’t that she couldn’t; she just hated it. She was a common sight on the side of the road around Chester, walking on the shoulder with her head down and her thoughts a million miles away.
I started up the engine. “I’m sorry,” I said.
“For what?” she asked.
I shrugged. “For all of it.”
“I know you don’t want to lose business, but—”
“That’s not what this is about,” I said. It hadn’t even entered in. I supposed I should have been worried about the impact it might have on my work, my sole source of income, but my reputation had always been made by things beyond my control. The idea that I had a say in any of it seemed faintly absurd.
“Then why?” Liv asked.
I took a left up the gravel road toward Liv’s place and didn’t answer at first. “That day, in the woods. The day I…”
“I know what day,” Olivia said gently, saving me from having to finish the sentence.
“You saw Stahl.” I said it like it wasn’t a question. Like I didn’t need the answer.
“So did you,” she said, a small line appearing between her brows.
“Right,” I replied, more sigh than sound. “Right. Of course.”
The fingers of her right hand dug into the biceps of her opposite arm. She stared out at the trees, grown wilder in my absence. The town of our youth was being swallowed up by the forest it had tried to tame. “We need to do this,” she whispered.
I pulled up in front of the metal gate that blocked the end of Marcus and Kimiko’s drive. Discreet solar panels perched on top of the posts, and there was a pad to enter the combination. Back when we were kids it had been a chain and a padlock holding the gate shut, and Marcus would sit up most nights in the front room with his gun on his lap. Things had calmed down since then, but the habit of paranoia remained.
Once that fear was in your body, that knowledge that someone wanted you dead, it never entirely left.
The car idled. I knew I should tell Liv that she was right. We’d kept this secret long enough. But I was exhausted—from the drive, from the argument, and from years of knowing that every time Liv’s name appeared on my phone there was a fifty-fifty chance of a crisis. She was stuck in this place where she needed me, but she wouldn’t let me be there for her.
There was nothing left in me to give. Not today.
I touched her wrist lightly. It was the only way I ever touched Liv—carefully, afraid that she would run. Afraid that we would break.
There was something dark and strange in her eyes, more like anger than sorrow but not properly either. “I’ll be here tomorrow,” I said, ritual words I’d spoken many times before.
“So will I,” she answered. We’d ended a thousand calls like that—with a promise. It wasn’t Never again, but it was Not today, and we could string those days along one after another, a procession of sunrises we’d held on long enough to see.
I withdrew my hand. She gave a little shiver, and we sat for a moment, silent. “You want me to drive you all the way up?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I could use the walk.” She opened the door and stepped out, unfolding her long limbs one by one, taking care with each movement like she didn’t quite know how to live in her own skin. She paused, her hand on the door. “I love you, Naomi,” she said, with the same deliberation.
“I love you, too,” I told her, hanging the words on a smile she didn’t return. She pushed the door shut and walked to the gate, slinging herself over it in a few practiced movements. I watched after her until she rounded the bend and disappeared among the trees.
The truth could hold until tomorrow, I told myself. We could have the questionable comfort of our secrets for a few more hours.
* * *
Dad lived outside of town, in the house where I’d grown up and where he’d grown up before me. It’d always been a wreck. My grandfather’s sole talents had been cutting down trees, collecting crap, and ignoring his kids. Dad ended up with two out of the three and not the one that brought in a paycheck, so the place had only gotten worse over the years, especially after Mom took off—fed up with him and with me and with a town too stubborn to realize it was already dead.
A rusted-out Chevy Impala had joined the herd in the front yard. The piles of scrap metal, busted string trimmers, cracked bathtubs, and bent bicycles—all things he was going to get around to fixing up and selling any day now—had crept out another foot or so toward the property line, but otherwise it was the same old house.