At the river dock, right across from the bookstore, Sera and Sander are helping their mama pack her little bottles and charms into boxes. They finish loading everything into their boat, and Delphine wanders over to chat with one of the fishermen who’s just come back in for the day.
I wave to Sera and Sander, and they exchange one of those looks they have. Then Sera digs something out of her backpack, and they start in my direction. As soon as I see the artist’s sketchbook tucked under Sera’s arm, something that tastes like dread tickles at the back of my throat.
Sera and Sander are psychic artists. The dead communicate with them, like they do Honey. Only it’s different. The twins draw things. People. Places. Objects. Images that come into their heads out of nowhere.
A lot of weekends they sit out there on the dock with their mama, and for twenty bucks they’ll sketch the exact place your lost wedding ring is hiding, or a perfect spitting-image likeness of your dead son or your grandmother – people Sera and Sander have never even laid eyes on. I’ve seen folks clutch those drawings to their chests and sob. And when that happens, they always tip extra.
“We have something to show you,” Sera says, and the two of them join me on the steps. Sander does his best to give me a reassuring smile. “We didn’t say anything earlier because we haven’t told Hart yet. Or any of the others.”
“Okay,” I say, even though I don’t like the idea of keeping secrets. Especially from Hart.
Sera flips open the sketchbook, and I stare at the shape drawn in charcoal. “You recognize it?” she asks, and I nod.
“It’s the big black trunk from Honey’s shed.”
I haven’t seen it in years.
When we were little, we used to play magician. Hart would be the magic man, and Elora his beautiful assistant. The others would be our captive audience. And I’d be the one to climb inside the trunk, trying not to breathe while Elora covered me with a blanket to make me disappear.
Eventually, it was the trunk that disappeared, though, pushed into a back corner of the storage shed and covered over with a decade’s worth of junk and spiderwebs.
And now Elora’s disappeared.
And the trunk’s come back into my life. Almost like magic.
“I’m not sure what it means,” Sera says. “I’ve been trying to figure that out since I drew it. But I know it has something to do with Elora.”
“It could mean she ran away,” I say, and I feel a little hope surge through me. “Packed up and left.” I look up at Sera. “Right?”
Sera and Sander exchange another look. “Maybe,” Sera says. “But we don’t know that for sure.”
“Why haven’t you shown this to Hart?” I ask.
“Grey, you don’t know how low Hart’s been.” Sera gives her head a little shake, and that braid swings behind her back. “He feels responsible, I think. Like he should’ve been lookin’ out for Elora. That night.” Sander nods in agreement. “We didn’t want to get him all worked up when –”
“When you can’t say what it means.”
“Yeah.”
“Can I keep this?” I ask.
“Sure,” Sera says, and she rips the page out and hands it to me. “There’s more, though.” She passes the sketchbook over to Sander, and he flips through until he finds what he’s looking for. Then he places the open book in my lap. “Sander did that one.”
I shiver when I see the bold pencil lines. Like someone walking over my grave, Elora would have said.
“This one is about Elora, too?” Sander nods and runs his fingers over the sketch.
The page is filled with a figure. The shape is human. Arms and legs. Normal enough. All except the face. That’s not normal at all. Because where the mouth and the eyes and the nose should be, there’s nothing. No features. And the more I stare at that emptiness, the more it scares me.
I flip the notebook closed.
“We don’t know what that one means, either,” Sera says, and she shoots another look at her brother. “But Manman thinks she does.”
“What does she say?” I hand the sketchbook back to Sera. I don’t want to hold it any more.
“étranger,” Sera tells me. “A stranger. Someone we don’t know.”
Fifty or so people live in the little houses that dot the boardwalk. That many again, roughly, out in the swamps nearby.
And I know every single one by sight. By name, too. And they all know me. There are no strangers here.