Either Levi really is passed out or perhaps he’s not even home, gone somewhere else within the community.
Theo reaches the broad wood desk and his outline bends low, opening one of the drawers. Books line the shelves on the far wall—I can smell their damp, inky scent—and the curtains over the window are drawn closed. Theo pulls out a tangled heap of keys from the drawer, keys to every vehicle that’s ever come to Pastoral, and he places them on the desk then begins sifting through the pile, searching for one key in particular.
“Do you know what it looks like?” I hiss.
He doesn’t answer, his hands working methodically through the keys secured on metal rings, others attached to woven fabric, while some have multiple keys tied together. But then Theo lifts one up, bringing it close to examine it. Hanging from one end is a square piece of metal that reads: Lone Pine Lake. It’s a souvenir, the kind of thing you buy at a gas station or at a small, lakeside store near a campground. A memento.
Memories swirl and collide through me, recalling such places: campgrounds and winding highways and car radios and the smell of tents newly erected after sitting in attics and garages for too long.
“I think this is it,” Theo says, holding the key up for me to see. And then he is quiet a moment, staring at it, and I wonder if he’s recalling a similar flutter of memories. “This is the key to my truck,” he states, as if to solidify it in his own mind.
He pushes the key into the pocket of his jeans, and looks at me, nodding. It’s time to go.
But that’s when I hear it: the banging through the walls.
An echo coming from inside the house. Upstairs.
At first I think it’s Levi—he’s woken, he’s heard us, and he’s stumbling for the stairs, bumping into furniture, still half-asleep and fully intoxicated.
But then I hear a voice; someone shouting for help, fists pounding against a door.
I walk carefully into the living room, to the stairwell, straining to hear. And I know the voice: It’s Bee.
THEO
Her voice is hoarse against the grain of the wood door. “Let me out!”
Bee is trapped inside the closet, and Calla reaches for the knob, but a lock has bolted the door shut. I reach up to the top of the doorframe, feeling for a key, but find only dust.
“Stand back,” I say to Calla.
Her eyes swivel to mine, and she steps away quickly. I ram my shoulder into the door, but it doesn’t move—the wood frame is solidly built. I spin around, looking for something I can use to it pry open. But the hallway is mostly empty.
“Calla,” Bee pleads from the other side. “Please, open the door.”
“We’re trying,” Calla whispers, as if she needs to be quiet, as if Levi might return and hear us in the house.
I bolt back down the stairs, and in the living room I find an iron poker hanging from a hook beside the fireplace. I grab it, and for a split second, an image flashes across my vision: of Levi holding the metal poker and jamming it into the fireplace to spur on the flames. His face turns, looking back at someone behind him. “You could be valuable here,” he says. “Part of our community. It’s a better life than what you left behind.” And then another face comes into focus, the man standing behind him in the living room: It’s me.
I drop the poker to the ground and press a hand against my eyes. The afterimage was from years ago, when I first arrived and Levi tried to convince me to stay. I swallow and take a deep breath, letting the image recede. In my other life, as Travis Wren, I would see glimpses of the past in the objects I touched—but that talent has gone dormant, forgotten, along with everything else. But now perhaps it’s stirring awake, a creature blinking its eyes open after years of hibernation. First, I saw Maggie moving through the house and out to the pond when I held the Foxtail book, and now the metal poker.
Slowly, I bend and pick up the poker from the floor, but when the image of Levi starts sparking across my eyes, I blink and stuff it back down. When I can feel it fading like shadows on a cloudy day, I open my eyes and head for the stairs, taking them two at a time.
I don’t tell Calla what I saw—there’s no time—instead, I wedge the sharp end of the poker into the space between the door and the frame, and pull. Surprisingly, the wood begins to crack and separate as soon as I apply force, prying the door free. One more good shove and the lock mechanism breaks and the door pops open.
Bee tumbles out as though she’d been leaning against the door, blinking wildly, blood along her cheek and dripping down her shins to her feet. Calla grabs Bee by the arm and holds her steady. “I heard you,” Bee says, breathing deeply, eyes too wide—like a terrified animal whose heart is about to burst. “I heard you downstairs. I knew it was you.”