She glanced back over her shoulder.
At the end of the hall, the third door stood half open, just as she had left it after disposing of the blackbird’s corpse. The sunlight in that room had been bright then. But the sun had shifted as evening fell. Black lines ran like oil streaks down what little wall she could see. The longer she stared, the more it seemed like one of those shadows was closer than the others, as if it had taken a step away from the wall. It peered at her.
Bullshit. Shadows don’t peer at you. You stare at anything long enough in this house, and you see shadow people behind doors and grinning faces in the walls.
Still, she could not look away. She stared at the shadow behind the door, and the shadow stared back, each waiting for the other to move.
An ear-piercing shriek sent an electric jolt down Kris’s back.
She spun around.
In the pink bedroom, Sadie was crouched down in front of the dresser, her hands still on the round wooden knobs of the bottom drawer.
She winced. “Sorry.”
Kris let out a relieved breath.
Slowly, Sadie pulled the stubborn drawer the rest of the way out. Its warped sides continued to make that god-awful sound, although in a lower register, like a recording of a scream played at the wrong speed.
Kris shook off the shock and started to walk away. But as she reached the entryway to the great room, she paused.
Look back.
She fought the urge, but the voice in her mind purred, savoring the words:
Look. Back.
She allowed herself one quick glance, just to satisfy her curiosity.
The sun outside must have shifted, because the shadow behind the door was gone.
In a storage space under the kitchen island, among baking sheets and pans burned black from years of abuse, was a cast-iron skillet. She rinsed it out in the sink, set it down on the largest burner of the electric range, and turned the corresponding knob to Medium. Beneath the skillet, the heating coil slowly came to life, transforming from gunmetal gray to a glowing red.
By the time Kris had buttered two pieces of bread and sandwiched a thick slice of Velveeta between them, Sadie had returned from her bedroom. She leaned her elbows on the island’s butcher-block top and rested her chin in her hands, watching as her mother dropped the sandwich onto the hot skillet. The bottom layer of bread hissed angrily as it began to brown.
Kris had forgotten to take up the dusty cushions from the breakfast nook booth, and the thought of any dead roaches and crickets decaying underneath forced them to stand and eat their sandwiches at the kitchen island. They munched quietly as the gooey goodness of artificial cheese oozed out from between slices, pausing every now and then to dig into a bag of barbecue chips laying open beside them. It wasn’t the fanciest dinner, but it just felt right.
It was close to seven now. The shadows in the great room had grown long and narrow across the freshly cleaned wood floor. The four grand windows at the far end of the house sparkled with golden sunshine, as did the surface of the lake beyond them. On the opposite shore, leaves shimmered in the breeze like schools of silver-skinned fish. The trees stretched for another quarter mile, and the red hills rose up from the forest. The ridge of the hills was a line of fire.
Kris checked the kitchen drawers until she found a corkscrew, which she twisted through the foil top of a bottle of wine and into the soft flesh of a cork. The cork gave a feeble screech as it was ripped from the bottle’s neck. She found a 1970s-era amber glass tumbler in another cabinet, gave it a quick rinse with soap and water, and filled it halfway with the cabernet she had brought from Black Ridge. She had a few more bottles leftover from Jonah’s wake that were still packed in a box in the Jeep. After that, she would have to find a liquor store.
The balcony called to her, and she opened the French doors, Sadie following her outside.
At one end of the deck was an old metal bistro table. On its surface was a mosaic sunburst that would have exploded in bright orange and yellow and red had it not been for the thick layer of dirt covering it. A spiderweb hung underneath the table. It stretched between the legs in an elegant circular pattern. This was not the random madness of a black widow’s web. Kris knew whatever spider lived there would be harmless.
On either side of the table were two barstools. Their bare metal seats were in need of cushions and a few streaks of white bird droppings were crusted on their backs, but otherwise they were still in decent shape.
Kris pulled the stools away from the table, flicked away the bulk of the bird shit with her fingernail, and positioned them side by side before the deck’s front railing. With her free hand, she tapped the seat of the chair closest to Sadie as if to say, Hop up.
Sadie placed a bare foot on the thin metal bar running low around the chair legs and hoisted herself up onto the seat. A blackish-orange line of rust and dirt was left on the bottom of Sadie’s foot.
She’ll take a shower later, Kris told herself. Then she shrugged. Or she won’t. She can go to bed with a dirty foot. Whatever she wants, as long as she’s happy.
She waited for the shadow voice deep in her mind to mock this, to tell her that Sadie would never be happy, never again. But there was only silence.
Kris slipped an arm around Sadie’s back, and the little girl snuggled into her side. Neither said a word as they watched night gently descend on Lost Lake.
The flames behind the hills died down until only a sliver of pink separated the ridge from the darkening sky. The first star faded into view, and then another and another, and each one birthed a twin in the lake’s mirrorlike waters. Soon a trail of stars stretched out infinitely into the blackness.
Just as the stars had appeared, faint lights began to flicker in the darkness around the shoreline of their cove. Other lake houses. Other people looking out their windows or sitting on their decks to witness the fantastic transformation of day to night, each one in awe as if they were seeing it for the first time.
From somewhere within the dark clusters of cattails that dotted the shore, bullfrogs began to croak. They sang from deep in their throat, a guttural song that crouched low to the rocky ground as it drifted up the slope to the house. In the weeds, the crickets responded with their own night music. Their higher pitch and faster rhythm should have clashed with the slow, steady bass of the frogs, yet somehow the two disparate tunes melded into something new and implausibly perfect.
Over by the swing set, its metal skeleton cloaked in shadow, a firefly blinked. Soon the entire bluff overlooking the lake was alight with the insects, their tails flashing in the darkness like silent fireworks.
Kris nuzzled closer to Sadie and whispered in her ear, “If we can find a jar, we could catch them. You could keep them in your room.”
For a moment, Sadie considered this, and then she said, “But won’t they die if we try to keep them?”
Fuck. Don’t ruin this. Don’t ruin this moment, Kris scolded herself.
“Yeah, you’re right. Better to let them fly around free out here. They’re pretty, aren’t they?”
She felt Sadie nod. Any thoughts of death seemed to have passed.
Out beyond the mouth of their cove, across what looked like miles of open water, the horizon began to glow with a pale light. Kris watched as the silver moon inched its way into the black sky. Like the stars before it, the moon was captured in the surface of the lake. The cool breeze picked up, rippling the water, and the moon’s reflection dissolved into waving lines like a bad television signal.