They fell silent once more.
Inside, a jangly guitar churned out power chords over driving drums and cymbals that crashed like waves.
Kris knew the song immediately. She winced in a mixture of pleasure and pain, her mouth opening in a silent “Oh!”
“Moving forward, using all my breath …”
Pushing her chair away from the table, Kris slipped down to her feet.
“Come on,” she said, holding a hand out to Sadie.
The little girl stayed put.
“Oh, so that’s how it is.” Kris stretched her arms out over her head, her body swaying. “Okay. You think you can actually listen to this song and not dance. Cool. Let me know how that works out for ya.”
The chorus kicked in, and Kris sang it to her daughter, loudly and more than a little off key.
“I’ll stop the world and melt with you! You’ve seen the difference and it’s getting better all the time.”
A smirk tried to force its way onto Sadie’s lips. She covered her mouth with a hand, but there was little she could do to fight it.
Kris tilted her head back to sing to the sky. “There’s nothing you and I won’t do …”
Even with the music blaring, she heard the faint sound of chair legs scraping across wood. Sadie stepped up to her, and Kris took the girl’s hands, twirling her around and around until that smirk turned into a beaming smile.
“I’ll stop the world and melt with you!”
They danced, their fingers clasped, Kris moving her daughter’s body to the beat, just as Kris’s mother had danced with her on those summer nights when the music settled on their skin.
God, she loved this song. Because it was more than a song. It was an anthem. A triumphant celebration.
It was perfect.
“Dream of better lives, the kind which never hate, trapped in the state of imaginary grace.”
Sadie’s body suddenly grew still.
“Who’s that?” she asked.
Kris stopped dancing.
“Who are you talking about, sweetie?”
Sadie pointed to the opposite side of the lake. “There. That woman.”
Kris searched the black forest on the other shore but saw nothing.
“She’s watching us,” Sadie whispered, more to herself than to her mother.
A chill ran through Kris. “Sadie, I don’t see—”
There it was. Through a narrow break in the wall of featureless black trees that spread across the shore like smeared ink was a light, burning brightly. A single fixture was mounted above the back door of another lake house, and silhouetted against its glow was a dark form, watching. The distance was too far and the night too dark for Kris to see her clearly, but there was no doubting it was a woman, tall and thin with hair hanging like black sheets of rain around her shoulders. Her arms were down straight at her sides, and the featureless void where her face was seemed to be staring straight at them.
“It’s just someone else who lives on the lake,” Kris said, a little too quickly for her own liking.
“Why is she watching us?” Sadie asked.
Kris was suddenly acutely aware of her situation—alone with her eight-year-old daughter in a small house in the woods—a house with a single dead bolt on the front door, and weak latches on every other door and window—on the outskirts of an equally small town that was not their own.
Stop, she warned. You’re trying to scare yourself.
She shook her head to dislodge the thoughts burrowing into her mind. “She’s not watching us, Sadie,” she said. “She’s just on her deck, like we are, looking at the lake. She can’t see us. It’s too far away.”
“We can see her.”
“Not really. She’s just a shadow.”
“It feels like she’s looking at us.”
The hairs on the back of Kris’s neck prickled. Sadie was right. It felt like they were being watched, like two eyes were boring into them with an intensity as inexplicable as it was undeniable.
Before Kris even realized she was moving, she had stood up from her chair and was collecting the things from the table.
“Come on,” she said, nodding toward the back door. “It’s getting late, and I still need to bring in the rest of our things.”
Sadie obeyed without fuss, stuffing the last bite of hot dog bun into her mouth and trudging back into the house.
As soon as they were inside, Kris closed the French doors behind her and twisted the lock. She leaned back against the cool panes. It was better in here. Safe.
Kris glanced over her shoulder and found herself staring through her own reflection. It was like peering through a ghost.
Across the lake, the porch light shimmered in the darkness. But the woman was gone, if she had really been there at all.
The back hatch of the Jeep was beginning to sag. The old hydraulic hinges always did this in cold weather, and even though the June night was far from what Kris would call “cold,” it was considerably chillier on the lake once the sun went down.
Propping the door up with one hand, she stretched out with the other until her fingers grazed the cardboard side of the last box. She slipped her fingers over its top edge and pulled the box closer. There was a clank as the items inside shifted. She tipped the box toward the dome light at the center of the Jeep and was immediately reminded of what she had packed in this particular box: a stack of ceramic plates, and beneath these, a random collection of silverware.
Good. No more eating off paper plates. Just because their stay was temporary didn’t mean it had to feel like it.
She let the hatch door slam shut on its own as she turned toward the house, the box pressed securely to her chest.
Around her, a night breeze rustled the branches of the endless forest. The weed-infested yard emitted a rhythmic drone as if the very ground were vibrating. It was different from the song of the bullfrogs out back. This was a soft buzz like an electrical appliance idling. It was the lullaby of content crickets nestled into the still-warm earth.
Before her, Kris could barely make out the brick path leading up to the front porch. She gripped the box tighter as she carefully navigated the uneven terrain.
From high overhead, there came a loud bang, like a fist against glass.
She glanced up at the house.
The windows on the second floor were dark.
She kept her eyes on them as she picked up her pace, staring at their black panes as if at any moment she expected to see someone peering down at her.
Above the oval window on the far right, on the gable’s peak, something shifted, a black shape that danced in place along the ridge. Its movements were jittery, like a filmstrip with multiple frames excised at random. It cocked a small, pointed head, eyeing her. Just as she reached the overhang of the front porch, the thing gave an abrasive shriek.
Another blackbird.
Kris snorted, irritated.
The bird cried again.
“Kiss my ass!” she yelled up at it.
The bird kept its eyes trained on her. Its head was now cocked at such an angle that the ebony spheres set into its dark skull caught slivers of moonlight.
Kris stepped onto the porch, thankful to be hidden beneath its roof. Balancing the box with one hand, she twisted the doorknob with the other and flung open the front door. From above, the unseen bird gave a final awk, just for spite, as she entered.
She set the box on the kitchen island. The other boxes and suitcases were stacked in a heap behind the leather couch in the great room.