A soft breeze ripples over the surface of the pond, my skin briefly pricked with gooseflesh, and a memory comes with it: of Rose and Linden, their deaths still so razor-edged in my mind. Their bodies left to rot in the woods, visible from the border—limp, unmoving. They knew what could happen, but they risked it anyway: sneaking past the perimeter. Just like the story of the young wheat farmer’s daughter who lived in the valley back when the town was first built—before the members of Pastoral bought the land. She was only nine or ten when she snuck from her room after dark and went into the forest. Seven days passed before she was seen again, wandering beyond the border trees looking wild and mangy, like a forest creature covered in rotted elm leaves. It was the first time the early settlers started to suspect the trees might contain an illness—something they should fear. They abandoned the town shortly after, frightened of what might live in these woods.
It’s why I fear what my husband has done.
And yet, I will keep his secret, I will protect his lie—I am a good wife, I think. I am a wife who won’t say a word, because he would do the same for me, he would form a wall around me to keep me safe—he loves me in this way, deeply, no matter what.
I stay in the pond and the sun climbs up from the east, unsteady and fat. In the distance, I can see the silhouette of my husband inside the house, visible through the kitchen window above the sink. He’s looking down at something again, probably the photograph. He won’t let it go.
I move closer to the shore, keeping my eyes on him.
A roar pulses in my ears.
Another figure appears at the window: my sister. She’s leaning slightly, a hand on the counter to orient herself, and Theo lifts his head to look at her. They aren’t close, but near enough to talk softly so their voices won’t carry out the open windows into the meadow. To the pond where I float, watching them.
My legs wade up toward the shore, feet sinking into the mud, and I see Travis’s head flick toward the window, as if to see if I’m close, if I might walk through the screen door and catch them.
The meadow grass pricks the soles of my feet, the air is slightly cool against my flesh, pond water dripping from my hair down my back, but I turn my ear toward the farmhouse, straining to hear. A knot tightens in my stomach. They’re much too far away for me to hear the words being muttered between them.
But it doesn’t feel right, the clandestine way Theo leans close to Bee, his eyes flashing to the window.
Some secret thing is being shared between them.
Words meant only for their ears.
BEE
“He was here,” I whisper, standing at the kitchen counter, my chin tilted upward. Theo, my brother-in-law, is a tall man and I don’t want to speak to his chest, his throat, so I lift my face, hoping my clouded eyes have met with his.
Maybe I’m stupid to be this close to a man who went over the boundary and into the trees. But when I calm my own breathing and listen again to the slow cascade of blood through his veins, at his temples, his throat, it still sounds clean, unfettered. No illness streaming through him.
“Who?” Theo asks, swiveling to face me, a tremor of something in his voice. My sister is still out in the pond, floating in the cool water. Theo and I are alone in the house.
Still, I speak softly so only he will hear.
“The name you said earlier when you were arguing with Calla.”
“We weren’t arguing,” he replies quickly, as if I’m the younger sister he must pacify, prove that he is being a good husband—a man who never raises his voice.
“I don’t care about that,” I say, my ears trained to the open window for sounds of Calla walking through the field from the pond. But it’s quiet, too quiet. Only a lazy breeze tickling the tips of the alpine meadow grass. “Travis Wren,” I say softly. “The truck you found.”
Theo’s breathing changes and I think he even leans in close, his skin radiating heat. “What about it?”
“I think he was here, Travis Wren, in the house. He was in the sunroom at the back.”
A wind brushes through the screen door and with it comes the sound of Calla rising from the pond, water dripping from her skin onto the blades of grass at her feet. It’s far off, but I can hear her movements. “Why do you say that?” he asks.
“I remember him.”
Theo makes a strange sound, a clearing of his throat, like he doesn’t believe me. “When was he here?”
Calla is moving toward the house now, getting closer.
“A year ago, maybe. Could have been longer.”