Second Glance: A Novel

  "Come on already, Ethan," Lucy said. "I'm choking to death."

  That was another thing--she said things like I'm going to kill you, or I'll die if you don't hand over that bag of chips--all the things his mother was so careful not to say to him, just in case he was stupid enough to take it the wrong way.

  "All right." Ethan held the flashlight over the knife, dropped the flashlight, and then the knife. "Jeez. You hold this." He handed Lucy the flashlight and wiped off the blade-- no need to contract the bubonic plague--before waving it through the candle flame again. When he glanced up, Lucy seemed uncharacteristically pale. "You're not gonna faint on me, are you?"

  Scowling, she held out her wrist.

  Ethan placed his right alongside hers. "I'll help you find a ghost before it finds you," he said.

  She stared into his eyes. "I'll take you to where the sun comes up."

  "To courage," Ethan said, and he slashed the blade fast as a gasp across his wrist and hers. He pressed the open wounds together.

  Lucy sucked in her breath. "To courage." She wrapped a strip ripped from Ethan's T-shirt around their arms as they both waited and hoped that bravery might be every bit as binding as blood.

  Az woke abruptly at the sound of birds. On his cot, he lay still for a moment, trying to pick apart the threads of a junco's whine from the trill of a whippoorwill and the throaty contralto of the loon. It had been weeks since he'd heard this particular melody. It had stopped the same morning he had told the other Abenaki about the burial ground, and had helped carry a drum to the Pike property, to formally launch a protest.

  He sat up slowly, feeling the creak and snap of each vertebra. Swinging his feet over the side of the cot, he toed off his slippers and put the sole of his foot right down on the packed earth that formed the floor of his tent.

  It was warm, just like it should be in August. Not frozen, as it had been.

  Az pushed back the flap of his tent and stepped outside.

  The world seemed centered now, not off just a few degrees to the point where it would keep spinning just a little more lopsided each day until you could not help but notice. Az snapped a flower off the honeysuckle vine that grew beside his tent and watched the pearl of nectar bead at the base of its horn. He drew it onto his tongue and tasted sugar instead of tears.

  Overhead, a plane cut the sky in two, and it did not fall. Az stood very still but did not feel yesterday pressing at the base of his skull like a hammer. He closed his eyes and knew, instantaneously, which way was true north.

  Az poured water into his immersion heater for his coffee and measured out the grounds. He washed his hands and his face and dressed carefully, because one missed button on a shirt can change your fortune for months at a time. He did not do anything differently in his morning routine than when Comtosook had been under a spell. After all, you couldn't mess with physics: just as Az had known what entropy was coming, he'd also known there would be a day when it all would fall to rights again.

  Had he been a wizard, Ross would have left his sister strength. Not he-man brute force, but endurance, because that was the way to get through anything, and as someone without a shred of it, he ought to know. Instead, though, Ross found himself sorting through the meager possessions in his duffel. This softest shirt of his, he'd give Shelby, because it smelled like Ross and he knew she'd want to save that memory any way she could. His watch, that would be for Ethan, in lieu of the time Ross really wanted to give him instead. The pennies from 1932 he would take with him to lay a trail across eternity like Gretel's bread crumbs, so that Lia could find him, just in case.

  Quiz: What kind of man spent thirty-five years on earth and accumulated only enough to fit in a single canvas bag?

  Answer: One who'd never planned to stay for very long.

  After seeing Lia's ghost, he had taken Meredith home. He'd heard her on the phone to Ruby--waking her, at 5 A.M., explaining what she'd seen in words filigreed with wonder. She'd said she would return to Maryland in a couple of days, after taking care of a few things here. Like the land, Ross imagined, and Spencer Pike's funeral. He didn't know if Meredith believed what he'd said about ghosts, now, and frankly, he didn't care. What mattered to him was Lia, and she wouldn't be back. He knew this the same way he knew that every breath was like drinking in tar, that every subsequent day cut like a knife. He was tired, so very fucking tired, and all he wanted to do was sleep.

  Ross stuffed his hand into the duffel again. A razor that had been his father's; that was for Shelby. His EMF meter-- Ethan, naturally. He pulled out the old spirit photograph he'd taken with Curtis--globules over a lake--and smiled. Maybe he'd give this to Meredith.

  He wouldn't leave a note, that was for sure. Look at how his sister had read into it the last time, and he hadn't even been trying to leave one then. He deliberately shredded every last bit of paper in the desk into pieces and tossed them, confetti, into the trash.

  Then he noticed Lucy Oliver standing in the doorway of his room. "Hello," he said. Truth be told, she made Ross uncomfortable. Her eyes were nearly silver, too light for the rest of her features, and she acted as if she'd known him for months instead of days. Tonight she was wearing jean shorts and a T-shirt that said MADAME PRESIDENT. She had a Shrek Band-Aid on her wrist. "You fall down skateboarding?" Ross asked amiably.

  "No," Lucy answered, just no, and that was all. "I'm supposed to tell you we're about to eat."

  Ross tried to answer--something like All right, or I'll be right there, but what came out instead surprised them both. "Did Lia talk to you about me?"

  Lucy nodded slowly. "Sometimes."

  "What did she say?"

  But instead of responding, Lucy looked around his room at the careful piles. "What are you doing?"

  "I'm getting ready to go," Ross replied.

  "Where?"

  When he looked at her, he had the sense that Lucy knew the answer wasn't a place.

  "Not yet though," Lucy said, a confirmation.

  He tilted his head. How much could she know? "Why not?"

  "Because it's time for breakfast." Lucy took a step closer and held out her hand, the one with the Band-Aid at its base. "So come on," she said, and waited a long moment before Ross grabbed hold and put himself into her keeping.

  It was not that Meredith expected a huge outpouring of mourners at Spencer Pike's funeral, but standing alone with Eli Rochert and a bloodhound as the Congregational minister did a hasty graveside service was a little embarrassing. Then again, considering how the Abenaki picketed the development of his land, she supposed she should be grateful that there wasn't a drum banging on the other side of the fence. She hadn't brought Lucy, because Lucy didn't know the man from Adam, and the last place her impressionable daughter needed to be was a graveyard. Shelby would have come if Meredith had asked, but she needed someone to watch Lucy more than she needed moral support at the interment of a man she barely knew. And Ross, well, who knew where he was. Meredith hadn't seen him since the night Lia had appeared, and didn't want to. Then she would have to find the correct words to say, and I'm sorry and I'm here didn't seem nearly as fitting as Don't.

  "Would you?" the chaplain asked Meredith, although she'd missed the question the first time. She looked at Eli for help, and he nodded toward the earth on the ground.

  Meredith picked up a handful, which she sprinkled over Pike's coffin. Eli discreetly slipped a check to the reverend, and Meredith flushed to think she hadn't even considered this part of the ritual. From whose bank account had that money come . . . Eli's? The town's? Neither, she hoped. Spencer Pike had bled Comtosook dry enough already.

  The minister offered Meredith his condolences and walked solemnly to his VW Bug to drive off, leaving behind a faint trace of Simon and Garfunkel from the open windows. Eli's big hand touched her shoulder. "You want a lift back?"

  Meredith shrugged. "I may just stay for a minute."

  "Sure," Eli said. He started off with his dog, and then came back and unclipped his cell phon
e from his belt. "Call me when you're ready, okay?"

  Meredith thanked him and watched him drive off in his truck. She wondered if Shelby realized how lucky she was, to have a man like that who'd happened to cross into her life at just the right moment. A light breeze ruffled the bottom of the black dress she'd borrowed as she looked at the fresh grave. "Good-bye," she said quietly, because she felt that someone should.

  "Good riddance," she heard behind her.

  Az Thompson stood a few feet away, dressed in an ill-fitting black suit with a white shirt and string tie. "You're the last person I expected to see here," Meredith said.

  "I didn't come for him." Az looked down at the raw mouth in the ground where the coffin lay. "First time in a long time I'm happy to have outlived someone." He glanced up at Meredith. "You care to walk a ways?"

  She slipped her heels off and padded along beside Az in her stockings. He climbed the hill, striding right across some of the graves. At some spots, she felt a tickling on the arches of her feet. He stopped at a weeping willow with a lopsided stone bench beside it. "This is a poor excuse for a thinking spot," he said, frowning.

  "Where would you go instead?"

  "A waterfall," Az said immediately. "Or flat on my back under the stars." He looked at her, then stretched out on the ground. "See what I mean?"

  She only hesitated a second, and that was because this dress was not her own. Then she settled herself beside Az and stared up at the sky. "What do you see?" she asked, the game she played with Lucy.

  "Clouds," Az answered, matter-of-fact.

  Meredith hugged her knees. In the crook of her arm was a small bruise from the blood that had been drawn days ago. Az had one too. "Can I ask you something?"

  "Sure."

  "It's just . . . well, I don't know what I'm supposed to call you. Mr. Thompson, or Az, or John."

  "I've always fancied being called Ted Williams by a whole stadium of fans, but I guess I could settle for one skinny girl calling me N'mahom."

  "What does that mean?"

  "My grandfather." He looked directly at Meredith. "I suppose, then, you believe it all."

  She nodded. "Not that it does anyone any good."

  "Why would you say that?"

  Tears came to Meredith's eyes. Surprised, she told herself that it was the day, the heat, the lack of sleep. "So much has already happened," she said quietly. "So many people hurt." She was thinking of people like Az, like Lia, like the faceless Abenaki of this town, yet Ross's features came swimming up to the surface. "This wasn't supposed to be about me, and somehow, it got that way."

  "People work too hard to figure out the meaning of their lives. Why me, why now. The truth is, sometimes things don't happen to you for a reason. Sometimes it's just about being in the right place at the right time for someone else."

  "That's it?" she said.

  "That's quite a lot." He turned and smiled. "You going home today?"

  Meredith had been planning to fly to Baltimore that afternoon. But she'd postponed her trip till tomorrow. She just didn't want to leave Comtosook with Pike's funeral as her last memory. "Soon," she hedged. "Will you write me?"

  "I'm not a big fan of the written word. Pike and his friends wrote down a lot of stuff that should never have been put to paper. And the Alnobak prefer an oral history to a written one."

  "With one great big chapter left out," Meredith murmured.

  "Then that's the one you have to tell."

  When she realized he was serious, she shook her head. "I wouldn't know what to say."

  "Doesn't matter. Just start somewhere."

  "To Lucy, you mean?"

  "To anyone," Az said, "who will listen."

  She tucked her hair behind her ear. "About that . . . I'm going to the reading of the will this afternoon. Eli arranged for a judge to write something up so that the property will revert back to me, because I was my mother's successor . . . and all these years, she was the one who really owned it. I'd like . . . I'd like you to have it."

  He laughed. "What am I going to do with a great big piece of land like that?"

  "I thought you might want to share it." Meredith split a blade of grass with her thumbnail. "Provided, of course, that Lucy and I have a place to stay when we come to see you. Will you take care of the details for me?"

  "Look up a man named Winks Champigny. He's in the phone book. He'll know what to do. I would help you, but I may not be around for a while."

  "Story of my life. I meet a great guy, and find out he's sailing on the next ship." Meredith smiled at him. "You'll be here, when I come back to visit?"

  "Count on it," Az said.

  "You're sure you don't mind?" Shelby asked for the tenth time. She looked at Meredith's reflection in the mirror as she fastened a locket around her neck.

  "Why would I mind? The kids watch each other. I'll be sitting on the couch eating bonbons and watching soaps."

  It was a novelty for Shelby--she was being taken out on a real date, at a real time, for dinner. "Well, I know you'll want to pack up for your flight tomorrow. So consider yourself off duty the minute Ross gets back."

  He had left to collect equipment he'd left at the Pike property. Why he'd chosen to do this in the dark, at 8:30 P.M., was beyond Meredith. "Do you know where Eli's taking you?"

  "Some five-star place in Burlington." She fell backward onto the bed beside Meredith, smiling so hard that her face actually hurt. "I've been out with him a dozen times," Shelby murmured. "To the store, to his place, for a drive. So why do I feel like this?"

  "Because you're crazy about him," Meredith said. "Blame it on the dopamine being secreted by your brain."

  "Leave it to a geneticist to reduce love to a scientific reaction."

  "Those of us who don't have it readily available prefer to think of it that way."

  Shelby rolled onto her stomach. "Who's Lucy's father?"

  "A guy who shouldn't have been," Meredith replied. "How about Ethan's?"

  "That guy's brother, apparently." Shelby propped her chin on her hand. "Did you love him?"

  "To pieces."

  "Me too." She looked at Meredith. "Sometimes I pretend that I haven't met Eli. Or that he isn't the last thing I think about before I fall asleep. It's like a superstition, you know-- if I don't put that much value on a relationship, maybe it won't get ripped out from under my feet."

  "No one's going to rip this out from under your feet," Meredith said. "Relationships succeed and fail because of the people in them . . . not some karmic plan."

  "You think? Don't you ever wonder if there's one person you're meant to be with?"

  "God, no! To say that you've got one soul mate in the world, out of six billion people . . . well, mathematically that's setting yourself up for failure. What are the odds?"

  Shelby shook her head. "That's where fate comes in. If I hadn't had Ethan, I wouldn't have gotten divorced from Thomas. If Ethan hadn't had XP, I wouldn't have moved to a town like this one, where the houses are far apart so he can play at night. If Ross hadn't come to the end of his rope he wouldn't have been here to investigate the Pike property. All these things, which were awful at the time . . . maybe they were just leading up to my meeting Eli."

  "Did you think that you were destined to marry Thomas?"

  "Well, sure, at first--"

  "There you go. Fate," Meredith argued, "is what people invent to explain what they can't understand. If you think Eli's the one, you tell yourself it was meant to happen. And if he breaks your heart, you'll tell yourself it wasn't meant to be. I've spent ten years trying to find a man who knows where I am in a room the moment he steps inside, without even having to look. But it hasn't happened. I can admit the truth to myself--that I've got lousy luck at finding love--or I can tell myself that I haven't crossed paths with my soul mate yet. And it's always easier to be a victim than a failure."

  Shelby sat up. "Then what's that something that draws you to one guy out of a crowd? Or that first strike of lightning between you? Or the
realization that you've connected so deeply when you've only just met?"

  "Love," Meredith said. "Love defies explanation. Destiny doesn't." She thought of Lia, materializing in the clearing. "There are things you can't explain, that happen anyway. Like the guy who takes a bullet meant for his wife, even though survival's a basic instinct. Or the little girl who writes in a diary a secret sentence that her true love will say to her, when they meet--and lo and behold, one day, he does."

  "That happened?"

  "Well, no," Meredith said quietly. "But I haven't entirely given up hope. The thing is, if it does, it'll be because I went looking for him, and I found him. Not because it was meant to be."

  "Why, Meredith! You're a closet romantic!" Downstairs, the doorbell rang. Shelby leaped off the bed and shoved her feet into two different shoes. "Which ones, the flats or the FMPs?"

  "If it's destiny," Meredith said, smiling, "it shouldn't make a difference."

  Shelby grinned, and picked the heels. After one final look in the mirror, she hurried downstairs with Meredith trailing and opened the front door.

  Eli stood holding a pink rose with a forked stem and a smaller rose growing from it. Like a mother and child. He was dressed in a dark gray suit with a crisp white shirt and cranberry tie. "Well," Shelby said. "Don't you clean up well."

  "You look . . . you look . . ." Eli shook his head. "I had all these words that I looked up for you, and I can't remember a single one."

  "It's the dopamine," Shelby said sympathetically.

  "Radiant?" Meredith offered. "Resplendent? Bewitching?"

  "No," Eli said finally. "Mine."

  Az took another sip of the whiskey Ross had brought to the quarry. They sat side by side on folding chairs that Az had pilfered from a storeroom, drinking and watching the sky fall, a cauldron spilled of its stars. "You know I'm supposed to tell you to leave," he said.

  "So tell me."

  "Leave," Az said.

  "You know I won't," Ross pointed out.

  Az shrugged. "It's the dynamite. There are charges all over the quarry. The computers are gonna set them off in the morning, at dawn." He glanced sidelong at Ross. "Don't do anything stupid, all right?"

  "Stupid," Ross repeated, rolling the word around. "Stupid. What would constitute stupid? Would that include pining after not one, but two dead women?"