A Million Junes

  Saul takes a few steps down the hillside, the hot wind rippling through Dad’s sweatshirt and mussing his hair. I touch his arm. Is this it? I ask without sound. The day you won’t let go of?

  He nods, then squints into the sunlight. Together we watch the waves hit, the gulls dive low for Dorito crumbs and dropped grapes. I know this must hurt him, but it seems like it makes him happy too.

  Saul looks my way, shielding his eyes from the sun. I do the same, and he leans forward until our hands form an awning over us. Hi, he mouths.

  Hi.

  Want to go to the water?

  Yes.

  The sparkling lip of the lake is riddled with millions of floating memories. We climb down to the water’s edge, and when our toes should meet the frigid fringe of the water, we instead step onto something solid and glassy.

  We’re on a frozen pond now, circled in velvety snow. The beach is nowhere in sight. A gangly boy and muscular girl in matching neon snowsuits skid wildly across the icy surface, and frosty shoes tower at the edge of the lake. The kids’ shouts and giggles echo as they race across the frozen pond, sliding on their snow boots. The boy slips and cries out as he falls, landing on his back with his arms and legs splayed out.

  “Saul!” the girl yelps and spins, gliding toward him. She drops onto her knees beside him, and he sits up, his hat askew to reveal a considerable amount of ear. I glance sideways at my Saul, adult Saul. His smile is tight but wide. His eyes glisten.

  “You’re okay.” Bekah rolls her eyes exaggeratedly and hauls him up by his coat. “Stop being a baby.”

  “I’m not a baby!” Saul yells.

  “You’re five minutes younger than me. That makes you the baby! That makes you my servant.”

  The Saul beside me shifts to accommodate a laugh, but I can see the effort it’s taking to hold himself together. The miniature Angert twins are hurling snow at each other now, and while at first they seem genuinely annoyed, Bekah shrieks with laughter when a snowball spatters her face, and Saul breaks into an openmouthed grin.

  At the top of the tree-covered ridge beyond the pond, Eli Angert appears with a bundle of firewood perched on his shoulder. His cheeks are red and eyes tight against the brilliant winter sun. “Time to come home!” he calls.

  The twins skate to the bank, passing through a cluster of Whites they don’t seem to see. We follow their lead, but when we step from the frozen lake onto the snowy shore, the Whites rip us away again, and we find ourselves crashing through a solid wall of water.

  Soaking wet and freezing cold, we emerge into a dark space, the thundering sound of falling water echoing around us.

  Saul’s hand grasps for mine in the dark, checking that I’m still here with him. Wherever here is.

  It’s as if each new threshold we cross—man-made or natural—tunnels us to whatever the White contains—like when the puffs cling to a doorframe or the lake’s lip, the memories they hold become rooms on the other side, places you can simply step into. That must be why just holding one the other night didn’t do anything—I needed to step into it, like Saul and I did when we passed from the icy shore to wherever we are now.

  I wipe the water from my eyes as they adjust to the meager light. We’re in a cave behind a waterfall—Five Fingers Falls? My eyes move past the dark, glimmering falls toward the interior of the cave, and I lurch backward when I realize we’re not alone.

  Behind a heap of soaked shoes, a boy and girl stand coiled together with their foreheads resting against each other’s, ignoring the Whites’ lazy batting.

  Saul squeezes my hand to get my attention. Who are they? he mouths. I shake my head.

  They’re not much older than us, both dressed in some kind of antique undergarments: the dark-haired boy in a pair of short shorts, the girl with strawberry blond curls and full cheeks in an ivory chemise that clings to her thighs.

  The boy whispers something to her we can’t hear over the roaring falls. His hands skim over her arms, and he lifts her chin to his.

  Saul and I trade abashed looks when the couple moves on to some pretty serious groping, and he tilts his head toward the waterfalls. I nod, and he pulls me through the thundering water.

  We stumble into my bedroom, immediately dry but still so cold we’re shivering. “You didn’t know them?” I stutter through the chill. Saul shakes his head. I can see pain in the torque of his face, the rigidity of his shoulders. “Are you okay?” I whisper.

  “Were you?” he says. “After you saw your dad the first time, I mean.”

  “No.” I shake my head. “But I wanted it to happen again. I wanted for it to never stop.”

  “Me too,” he says, eyes low.

  “I’m sorry, Saul.” I want to pull him toward me, wrap my arms around him, make him feel that he’s not alone. But I don’t. “I’m useless, but I’m here.”

  He nods, his dark eyes lifting to meet mine. The corner of his mouth twitches with an attempt at a smile. “Thanks, Jack,” he says quietly.

  I step back and slump onto my bed, my own disappointment spreading through me like wildfire. I close my eyes against rising tears. “After last time,” I say, “I thought maybe you were right, that my dad was trying to tell me something. But if that last memory was a total stranger’s, then, what, they’re random? I might never find a memory of him again?”

  Saul lets out a long breath, and the bed sinks as he sits beside me. “Hey,” he says, bumping my elbow with his. “Look, if the Whites were full of random memories, what are the odds you would’ve found a few of your dad’s? Or we would’ve found some of Bekah’s? Those odds are impossible, June. They’re miracle odds. I can’t promise this is a message from your dad, but this isn’t random. It means something, for both of us.”

  I open my eyes again and look into his. They’re dark and liquid, soft and warm. “This all started the night we met,” I tell him. “I thought I saw the ghost that night—the dark one—and when I got home . . . it happened for the first time here. I saw my dad.

  “When I was a kid, my dad told me only O’Donnells could see the ghosts—as far as I knew, no one else ever had. I thought it was our own private bad omen. But in that memory . . . in the bathroom, it seemed like . . . like Bekah saw it too.”

  Saul swallows and nods. “Yeah,” he agrees. “It did.”

  “What does that mean?”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t know. But there’s a lot about our families that a story about cherry trees can’t account for.”

  An uncanny tingle crawls down my spine, and the silence stretches out between us.

  I realize then that Saul still has my hand, and my eyes flash toward the door and then the alarm clock on my desk. Though it felt like we were only gone for a handful of minutes, the numbers flash 11:22.

  “You should go,” I say. “My parents will be home soon.”

  “June, I can’t pretend this didn’t happen—whether Bekah and your dad are trying to tell us something or not, we have the chance to see them again.”

  “I know.” I do. I understand how everything changed when we saw Saul’s sister. This bit of magic doesn’t only belong to me anymore, and I can’t ask Saul to forget about it, about the possibility of seeing her again. “I know. But my parents will be home any minute, and if you’re still here when they get here, this—you coming over—is going to get a lot harder.”

  He studies our linked hands, then nods and lets go. “Your story—I must’ve dropped it.”

  But there’s no sign of it. The pages are gone, maybe gathering dust and pollen in a pile of lost shoes. “What’s your e-mail address? I’ll send it to you.”

  “Would you believe Saul Angert is a rare enough name that I have the unique fortune of owning Saul dot Angert at Gmail dot com?”

  “Stop trying to impress me,” I tease.

  “Send me your story, Jack.” He steps through t
he doorway, and I feel a half-formed surge of panic before I peek into the hall and confirm he didn’t vanish into some other place or time. There are no Whites in sight as Saul heads toward the stairs. His phone rings, and he answers as he descends. “Takumi. What’s up?”

  As I listen to the gentle grit of his voice move down the stairs, I think about life a few weeks ago, before Nameless reappeared, before the Whites tore open the old wound in my chest, before I met Saul.

  Something major shifted when he came back. It’s as if all along we’ve been on two paths bound for collision, O’Donnell and Angert, and now it’s happened. We’re inextricably tangled; even the Whites know it.

  A few weeks ago, Saul had a different life too. Friends I don’t know, professors who shaped him, maybe non-O’Donnell enemies, all tucked away in another place.

  I want to know it all.

  • • •

  Two hours after Saul leaves, my phone buzzes on my bedside table with a new e-mail alert, and I realize I’ve been waiting for it.

  I tap open the e-mail, Saul’s reply to the story about my dad and the chickens.

  I hope you’re awake, I read. I hope you don’t fall asleep before I get to tell you that you’re amazing. This is amazing, and also you.

  I stare at the words, intoxicating waves of warmth coursing through me as I debate how to reply.

  Even if our collision was inevitable, even though it feels good to like Saul Angert, every step forward I take with him moves me a little further off my old path, the one that aligned with Dad’s.

  The mental gymnastics—justifying some things and drawing arbitrary lines before others, straddling loyalty to Dad and my interest in Saul—are exhausting.

  I try for an innocuous reply: Who’s Takumi?

  Old roommate, Saul answers. He’s been trying to get ahold of me for weeks, but I hate the phone. Turns out he’s getting married and moving to Indonesia to teach English.

  WOW! Congrats, Takumi! About time, I respond.

  No kidding. He and Sarah have been together for, like, four months.

  Oh . . . jeez. That’s . . . four months, I write.

  My thoughts exactly. Whatever, it’s his funeral. Whoops, meant to say wedding.

  Well, good for him. I can’t believe I haven’t been proposed to yet. Honestly, I’m offended.

  This is awkward. I swear I was already going to ask this, but . . .

  No, I will not be your date to Takumi and Sarah’s wedding. I cannot support such a union.

  Damn. Maybe next time one of my friends gets married, he’ll know his fiancée’s middle name and you’ll feel differently.

  After a long pause, I type, How are you?

  Bad in some ways, good in one.

  Meaning?

  Five minutes pass before my phone vibrates with his reply. One word:

  June.

  I fall asleep feeling bad in most ways, happy in one.

  Sixteen

  TUTORING? Saul’s e-mail reads.

  I snuggle deeper into the blankets, morning light washing across my face.

  On a Saturday morning? I respond.

  Okay, then what about Not Tutoring? he asks.

  You mean White-hunting?

  I watch dust twirl through the sunbeams, landing on the shaggy ferns and bulbous succulents Toddy helped me hang from the ceiling.

  I want to see more.

  Laughter, clinking pots, and the shrieks of a hyperactive cartoon dog drift up from the kitchen. Toddy makes breakfast every chance he gets, partly to keep the boys from overdosing on Cap’n Crunch and partly because his and Mom’s definition of a hot date has always been strolling hand in hand through an organic grocery store and coming home to make creamy cassoulet or flaky gâteau Basque with Jack’s Tart cherries.

  They’ll cook for hours, feeding each other bites of cheese and sips of Bordeaux as they go, then sit down for a three-course meal. The food is always delicious, and the process is always—like now—very loud.

  My sweet, sugar-addicted family is downstairs having their traditional lazy Saturday morning, and here I am plotting with Saul Angert to keep chasing memories of Dad and Bekah. Guilt gnaws at my stomach, and I burrow my face into a patch of sunlight. Today won’t work, I tell Saul. My whole family’s home.

  Then I’ll be Mike.

  I should say no. For Dad but also because I know it’s only a matter of time before my parents figure out who Saul really is.

  But until then, I can’t deny Saul the one thing we both want more than anything else: more time with the people we’ve lost.

  Okay.

  Fifteen minutes later I’m sweatered and blue-jeaned, rooting around for bagels in the pantry.

  “Eat breakfast with us,” Mom says, grabbing my hand.

  “I have tutoring,” I say. “He’ll be here any minute.”

  “On a Saturday?” Mom says. “Okay, well, Mike can eat too. We’re making omelets.”

  “I’m barely hungry. Bagel-hungry, not omelet-hungry.”

  The doorbell rings then, right as the boys start pummeling Toddy, who has a hot pan in his hand, with their new boxing gloves. Mom has to pull them off of him, shouting things like Faites attention! and Péril! One advantage of being significantly older than your siblings is that you can usually slip away unnoticed, which I do.

  • • •

  I open the door to Saul’s smile. The air outside is cool and dry, chilly in the shade of the porch, but I’d guess warmer out in the sun.

  “Hello, Jack.”

  I lower my voice so my parents can’t hear me, if that’s even possible over Grayson’s shrieking. “Mr. Angert.”

  He shakes his head. “God, I hate that.”

  “Hey.” I nod toward the cherry tree, where prickly green sprouts stick up from the grass in a circle.

  “What?”

  “Shadow and Grayson planted those.”

  “Huh. And they’re coming up this late?”

  “They planted them yesterday.”

  “Shit,” Saul says. “You’re rapidly turning me into a Five Fingers Truther.”

  “Good.” I lead him past the kitchen, grateful Grayson doesn’t notice his bud “Mike” walk by. We close ourselves in the sunroom along with the morning cold and plop down on the wicker couch. For a minute, we’re caught in heavy silence, just staring at each other.

  “So.” Saul clears his throat. “Whites.” The gravel in his voice rustles through me, and I want to touch him, or maybe tap my hand on the back of the couch until he sets his over it. He bumps my knee with his. “June, look.”

  A White skates across the sun-warmed glass, heading straight for the back door. It hovers there, expectant, and Saul and I exchange a look.

  He holds his hand out, and I take it shakily. We stand, reaching for the White. It bumps against our interlaced fingers, rolls onto our hands, and settles.

  “Ready?” Saul whispers.

  Desperate.

  Overwhelmed.

  Terrified.

  “Ready.”

  We take a breath and step outside.

  Nothing changes.

  At first, I think we’ve stepped into a memory of a day nearly identical to today, but then Saul’s voice cuts through the morning quiet: “Where are the shoes?” He looks surprised to hear himself too. “I guess that answers my question.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “In the memories, there’s always a pile of shoes,” he says. “But it didn’t work, so of course there aren’t any shoes.”

  The White is pushing up from our skin again, bobbing against our hands like it can’t find a way in but also doesn’t want to leave.

  “I don’t get it. What did we do wrong?” I say helplessly.

  We step back into the sunroom, searching for some clue as to wh
y it didn’t work. My mind cycles through the other times we’ve stepped into memories. “The shoes,” I say. “We were barefoot the other times.”

  Saul releases a gruff laugh, but he’s already bent down to yank his shoes off.

  “We should throw them in the yard.”

  “How many pairs of shoes do you think I own, Jack?”

  “More than the rest of the boys in my graduating class combined.”

  He smirks and kicks my foot. I untie my boots and, with mild regret, toss them outside. No coywolves appear, but the White is still drifting, and Saul slides his rough fingers through mine again. This time, there’s no Ready?

  We catch the ball of fluff. It melts into our hands, and we take a step together, leaving the sunroom and the present behind.

  It worked, I say silently.

  Saul’s grip tightens as we survey our surroundings. We’re just inside the woods, and everything, even the pile of shoes behind us, is blanketed in a layer of frost. The sky is bright and cloudless, and in the distance, a boy and girl, all sharp elbows and big ears and black eyebrows, are trudging our way. Saul and Bekah can’t be more than nine here, but they already look so themselves: he neat and elegant, she mud-smudged and tough.

  I glance at my Saul and tug his ear teasingly. He rolls his eyes and bumps my shoulder with his, sending a rush of heat down into my stomach.

  We look back toward the twins. Though he’s taller than her, Saul’s still struggling to keep up with his sister. “We’re not allowed,” he calls at her back.

  Her laugh has a shade of his grit to it, but where his is level and low, hers is loud, unapologetic. “That’s why it’s fun! We’re like spies.”

  As they pass us, we turn and follow them toward the edge of the woods, where white slivers of the farmhouse are visible between trees.

  The boy stops walking a few feet from the lawn. “He’ll be angry.”

  Bekah looks at him over her shoulder. “Just keep watch, okay?”