Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Can I eat at Will's tonight?”

Their dad shoots a look at their mom over a plate of roast chicken and mashed potatoes, left eyebrow raised in a perfunctory show of wordless disapproval. Jonah stands beneath the arch where the oak of the dining room floors meets the pine of the hallway, his rotting backpack slung over both shoulders. He clutches the straps so tightly they've lost all dimension.

“Weren't you just there?” Rodney Henris asks, corralling bits of chicken and potato together with a knife and fork.

“Ye— ” Jonah begins, voice breaking over the word. He clears his throat and spits it out again. “Yeah. Edith invited me. To dinner, I mean. After we came down.”

“They must've cooked up something real nice, then,” Sally Henris concludes. She sits between Christopher and her husband, spooning green beans onto her plate. The one at the seat across from her is empty. Jonah's spot.

“Yeah, well, so did you, Sally,” Rodney says.

Sally waves her hand, “Oh, I'm sure whatever she made is much better.”

“Don’t say that, Sal. Jonah, your mother worked hard to make this food— ”

“Rodney, stop,” Sally chides.

They toss rebuttals back and forth, debating the wisdom of letting their eldest child eat dinner at his friend's house on a Saturday night. There are many different things to take into account. Christopher can list a few off the top of his head, such as the fact that his dad was not fond of Will and the rest of the Thatchers, and that he considered dinner time a “familial institution.” He also knows that his mom is hard-pressed to deny Edith Thatcher—who spends each summer in a different European country and owns half the sports cars in town—anything. The idea that his wife might feel anything less than what she's worth at the mention of the Thatchers sets Rodney's blood to boiling, but Sally always denies such accusations. She calls it being a good neighbor.

With this in mind, Christopher doesn't care to listen. He slouches in his chair, pushing his beans around and stealing glances at his brother. Jonah's hair is a wind-tussled mess, tufts of red sticking up every which direction. His wide brown eyes—buoyed by the flush in his cheeks—drain in the yellow glow of the ceiling lamp. He looks like he'd run to the farm from the Thatcher’s pocket-sized mansion on the far edge of Coldwater, as if Will hadn't driven him back in his Mustang only an hour earlier.

Jonah catches Christopher mid-glance and smiles. Christopher is too focused on pouting in just the right way to convey his spite at being forsaken for Will and his stupid blonde coif to notice the tightness at its ends. He stabs a bean and shoves it in his mouth, hoping the action might inspire guilt.

“Jonah, sweetie,” their mom says, interrupting her argument. “You look a little pale. You aren't coming down with something, are you?”

“Huh?” Jonah blinks as if he's been shaken from a dream. “Oh. No, no—I'm fine. Can I go? Please?”

Rodney sighs, setting down his silverware and crossing his arms over his broad chest. “I don't know, son.”

Sally reaches over and places her hand on his forearm, where his sun-warmed skin is exposed. “Let him go, dear. It's just dinner.”

“Just dinner,” he grumbles. He hasn't dismissed the request entirely, though. Christopher can tell from how his pointer finger flutters against his shirt sleeve, tapping out a rhythm to his thoughts.

“Fine,” Rodney acquiesces after a minute of deep contemplation. “But tomorrow you're eatin’ what your mother makes you, alright?”

“Yup,” Jonah says, instantly pivoting on his heel.

“Remember: dinner is a—”

“A familial institution. I know, Dad. Promise I won’t bail. Don't look at me that way, Chris.”

Christopher’s attention drops to his food. “I ain't lookin’ any way.”

Jonah comes around the table before he can protest, hooking an arm around his neck and eliciting a yelp. He draws him against his chest in a play-act of strangling, knuckling his hair and kissing the side of his face, skin soft and cold. He doesn’t carry the peach-blossom stench of Will’s house, smelling instead of wood and rain-dampened soil.

“Let go, Jonah!” Christopher huffs, clawing uselessly at his hold. “I’m not a five-year-old!”

His brother releases him, allowing him to slump back into his chair. “Five and twelve,” he says, striding around the table to say goodbye to their parents. “Same difference.”

Christopher glares at him. “I hate you.”

Sally says his name warningly, but he doesn't apologize. He refuses to watch as Jonah moves from her to Rodney and back to the archway, not even when Jonah says he can use his Walkman until he gets back. He does, however, saw at his chicken and ask what time that'll be.

“Ten,” their dad answers for him. “Got it?”

Jonah nods. “We'll watch Predator when I get back, alright? Christopher?”

Christopher chews his bottom lip, finally looking up. Jonah’s eyeing him over his shoulder, his hand warm against the white frame of the archway. He smiles again and Christopher returns it, tentative.

“Okay,” he says.

Once Christopher has left, he listens to his parent’s usual conversation—boring things like politics and gossip his dad picked up that morning at the gas station—and dries the dishes as his mom runs them under soap and hot water. Afterwards, he treks out in the thickening dark of 6 P.M. and flips on the switch in the barn. A dingy bulb flickers to life, illuminating the mess of hay and dirt he has yet to sweep, as well as the gentle curve of the horses’ necks. He grins at Cricket—Sally’s young, pretty chestnut mare—and reaches over the stall door to scratch behind her ears. She tilts her head ever-so-slightly into his touch and snorts when he pulls away, dark eyes reflecting him in hard-edged shadow. He inserts Jonah’s cassette A-side into his Walkman and takes up a broom leaning against the wall by the door, imagining aliens in Guatemala and wondering at the kind of treats Jonah picked out for movie night. Last time had been Sour Patch Kids and gummy bears and popcorn, which Christopher had surmised as being too “squishy” an experience, since both the candy options were of the soft variety. When the end credits rolled onto screen, he’d begged for Resse’s Pieces and Jonah had called him a money-sucking fiend and that he didn't get paid enough for Reese's.

An owl echoes softly in the treeline, though Christopher can't hear it through his headphones. His eyes wander often to his watch, counting absence in minutes as he waits for his brother to return. Nighttime swallows Coldwater, drowning it in blackness.

Chapter Text

Jonah doesn't come home.

Chapter Text

By the time 10:41 arrives, Rodney's dialing the Thatcher's number on the landline, grousing under his breath. Sally's brushing her teeth in the bathroom and Christopher’s curled up on the couch in his pajamas, listening to the tone. A VHS of Predator waits patiently unopened on the coffee table, a leftover bag of gummy bears besides to keep it company. All the blinds in the living room have been shut and the overhead light switched off; only a floral lamp in the corner provides anything to see by.

“Wayne!” his dad exclaims when the call is finally picked up. “How are you?”

Wayne Thatcher’s voice drifts distortedly out of the phone, unintelligible from Christopher’s position. Fortunately, it isn't too hard to piece together the conversation.

“Really? That’s good, that's good.” He chuckles throatily. “Well, Mr. Thatcher, I don't wanna take up any more of your time than necessary, and that's a sentiment I wish certain other people shared, too. Could you do me a favor and tell Jonah to hurry on home? Curfew’s at ten and as you can see, he's a tad late.”

Mr. Thatcher takes a couple seconds to respond. Rodney's back is turned on Christopher, but he can already picture him tapping his shirtsleeve with his pointer finger again, a frown carving itself onto his mouth.

“My place?” he repeats. Sally comes out of the bathroom, tying a lilac-colored robe around her waist. Her brows form a worried wrinkle.

“Uh, no…” Rodney continues. The tone of the conversation has shifted—it no longer sounds friendly. “I haven't seen Will since he dropped Jonah off this afternoon. I don't—He said Edith invited him over for dinner.” He nods like Mr. Thatcher will be able to see it. “That’s what he told me. I'll call their friends—see if they know what hell’s going on. Uh-huh. Yup. Bye.”

As soon as Mr. Thatcher has hung up, his dad's dialing another number. Christopher's mom steps up behind him, rubbing a hand gingerly across his back.

“What’d he say, Rodney? Where's Jonah?”

Rodney runs a hand through his thick, dark hair, letting it rest atop his head for a moment. A sick, noxious feeling bubbles in Christopher's stomach. He hopes it's just the beans.

“He thought Will was with us,” his dad says gruffly. “Edith never invited Jonah to dinner. They haven't seen him since he was at their place—either of them.”

“Maybe they're at a friend's place? Tanner’s?”

“That's what I'm checking now. Wayne’s gonna check the others.”

The wrinkle in his mom's brow deepens. She purses her mouth. “You don't think he's at a party or something?”

“Does that sound like our Jonah, Sal?”

The following half-hour or so is spent interrogating the families of every person Jonah has ever brought to the farm to hang out with, or—inversely—left the farm to hang out with. Tanner Schmidt, Matthew Cook, Kyle Bell—all of them friends of Will and only Jonah's by association. Christopher’s brother has always been the type to keep to himself; he’d found Will when they were kindergartners and never bothered to find anyone else.

“Thank you for your time,” his dad says to each before he cuts the line. He’s run into dead end after dead end. None of them have seen or heard from Jonah or Will since Friday. Even Marissa Sanders, Will’s girlfriend of two years and a staple at the Thatcher house, hasn’t been in contact with them. The grandfather clock in the hallway reads 11:16 P.M.

“I've had enough of this,” Rodney says, storming out of the living room with Sally at his heels. He shrugs on a puffer coat hanging by the front door and slaps on his favorite cap—the one Jonah gifted him for Veteran’s Day seven years ago, stamped with the U.S. Marines insignia. Thank you for your service, Daddy is scrawled in Sharpie on the sweatband, the words near-unreadable if you don’t already know what’s written there. “I’m gonna look for him.”

“Gosh, I should’ve just trusted my gut and told him to stay home,” his mom says, arms crossed tightly around her midriff. “I knew he looked sick, or—or—I just… I didn’t want to— ”

“It's not your— ”

“What if he’s passed out somewhere, Rodney? In a ditch or something? Or— ”

“Sally, it's alright,” her husband reassures, grabbing her shoulder. “I’m sure he’s fine. You and Chris just head on to bed. We’ll chew him out together in the morning.”

Christopher shoots off the couch, tripping over the blanket swaddling him in his haste to get to the door.

“I wanna come,” he says.

“You’re staying here,” his dad orders. He gives him a stern look. “Don’t need both of you out and about in the middle of the night.”

“But— ”

“No buts. If you’re still up by the time your brother and I get back, you’re getting an ass-whooping, too.”

“Dad— ”

“Bed. Now.”

“Come on, Christopher,” his mom says, turning him gently away from the door. “Get some sleep.”

They venture into the hallway as it creaks open and shuts behind them. When he tries to look back at his dad, Sally turns his head away.

Chapter Text

Rodney spends half the night driving around town in his F-150, watching every sidewalk and slowing to ten past each alley. Coldwater is black as death and the moon only offers a sliver of light to see by, falling in patches through the treetops. He takes his makeshift route twice, afraid he might've driven past the right place at the wrong time. Eventually he parks and scours the streets on foot, calling out his son's name in the shivering autumn air. He doesn't get a reply, and there isn't a soul in sight save for a couple of stranglers muttering at each other on the front porch of a house overgrown with weeds. It’s 2:13 A.M. when he checks his watch. He takes off his cap and drags a hand down his face.

Sally is asleep on the couch when he gets home, but she wakes up as soon as he closes the door. He sees the question scrawled on her face, but he doesn’t have an answer she wants.

Rodney calls the Thatchers again, then dials 911.

Chapter Text

Sleep comes and goes whenever it damn well pleases for Laura Tate these days. She's up late, nestled in a plastic lawn chair under her backyard’s porchlight, a cigarette balanced between two fingers. One slow drag later and she's watching the smoke cloud in the dark. There aren't any stars out—none that she can tell, at least—but that's usual for this town. She crosses her left leg over her right and tips her head back against the chair, eyes fluttering shut. It's quiet tonight, but again, that's usual for this town.

The sound of her phone ringing carries through the screen door, disrupting the peace. Laura cracks an eye open and sighs, pushing lackadaisically out of her chair and meandering into her little one-story house without much zeal. She stubs her cig on an ashtray she leaves on the kitchen counter at all hours of the day. She's a woman of principle: as long as she doesn't smoke in the house, it's not really a habit.

“Laura Tate speaking,” she says into her phone. “What’s your business?”

A woman’s voice filters through the other end, flat and male. “Sheriff Tate?” she asks.

Denise. She straightens up against the wall she'd been leaning against—a miniscule movement. “Something up?”

“Got a couple of kids missing: Jonah Henris and Will Thatcher. Parents said they never came home. They've been gone for a couple hours. Jonah’s dad made the call.”

Laura blinks as the dispatch goes on. “Probably snuck out to a party or something,” he adds. “You know how they operate.”

“You sure you got those names right?” Laura asks, ignoring her.

“Yes.”

She fires questions at Denise one after another, twenty thoughts or a thousand spinning in her mind. She doesn't have any more information than what she's already given, and Laura knows it'll only be a waste of time interrogating her.

Jonah Henris and Will Thatcher, she thinks, hanging up and pulling on her coat. She snaps on her badge and heads out the back, past the plastic lawn chair toward her garage. If it'd just been Will—God have mercy on her soul—she probably wouldn't be moving as fast as she was now. There'd been multiple instances in the past of the Thatcher boy vanishing and his mother raising hell and all its demons to find him, only for Laura to catch him splitting beers at Coldwater Lake or drunk out of his mind in the middle of a cornfield; the only demons in this case were the crew of shoulder devils who nudged him away from the respectability of the Thatcher family and poured Will the liquor themselves. Jonah, however, was another story entirely.

She squeezes into her patrol car and clicks on the radio, feeling the clunky hunk of metal tremble through its steering wheel.

“Tate to dispatch,” she says. “I'm heading to the Henris residence now.”

Chapter Text

Christopher wakes up more times than he can count that night. Whenever sleep does manage to drag him under, it's to a swampy place filled with aliens and trees made of nothing but spine, so tall they pierce the green-gray sky. It's sort of like the woods around Coldwater, but not really like it at all. The aliens try to shoot him with laser guns and he tries to run away, but just as he's about to get to safety, his body shudders to stop. His mom and dad and Arnold Schwarzenegger watch from a gap in the treeline as he stands amidst the muck of sludgy swamp water, shouting at him to hurry, hurry, they're gonna get you! Chris, hurry— And while the aliens take aim, all he can think of is how he can't see Jonah anywhere.

He wakes bleary-eyed at 3:34 A.M. with a pounding headache. His first thought is of ibuprofen and his second is of Jonah.

Christopher shoves his sheets off and rolls out of bed, stumbling from his bedroom and into the hallway. He pads across to Jonah’s and throws the door open, just the way he used to when he was little. It responds eagerly to the force, swinging wide to reveal the landmine of his brother’s space—a more methodical mess had never existed.

Everything is just the way it was yesterday. The bed is half-made, comforter kicked to one side. His bookshelf is crammed to bursting with old schoolbooks and paperbacks and taped-up magazines, and next to it sits a desk with his unfinished homework. A corkboard hangs above, covered with pages from his sketchbook and random scraps of paper he’s collected over the years and hasn't bothered to throw away. There’s a picture of him and Christopher trick-or-treating as Batman and Robin, and a polaroid Will and Marissa Sanders sitting in the back of a pickup, he and Tanner Schmidt poking their heads out of the windows. Christopher ignores the photo strip of Jonah and Will and briefly notes the other untouched trinkets scattered about the room: cassettes piled precariously by his guitar, an Iron Maiden poster peeling off the baby blue wallpaper, crumpled-up receipts and loose change on his dresser.

Christopher’s heart sinks past his stomach, right through his shoes to the basement. Jonah isn't there, but Sheriff Tate is. She and his dad are standing by the bed, their heads bent together like a pair of ungraceful swans. They’d startled at the snap of the door opening, Tate’s badge catching under the light; taunting, almost.

“Hey there, kid,” she says, flashing him a washed-out impression of a smile. Her silver-threaded hair is drawn back in a low ponytail—looser than it's usually worn—and her green eyes have sunken into her skull, the surrounding skin bruised up in a sleepy kind of way.

“Go back to bed, Chris,” his dad starts, only to be cut off by Tate's hand. It slices swiftly upward.

“Hold on. I have a couple of questions for young Mr. Henris here, Rodney. Might as well get it done now since he’s up.”

She sits him alone at the kitchen table, only taking the seat across after his mom insists. Tate takes a pen and small notepad from her coat as Sally flies to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee before waiting upstairs with Rodney, an offer the sheriff doesn't object to despite the hour.

“This won't take long… Christopher? Alright if I call you that?”
Christopher nods.

Steam from the cup coalesces and breaks apart in the air as she starts her questioning, pen hovering over the yellow paper of the notepad. When's the last time you saw Jonah? This evening, right? Did you hear him on the phone with anyone? Did he get a call before he left? Did Jonah ever mention a place he liked to go if he wanted to be alone? Was he keeping any secrets? Anything he might not have wanted your parents to know?

Christopher trudges through his headache and answers to the best of his ability. It isn't so much Sheriff Tate herself that makes his hands clammy but the nature of her presence. The implications of it sink into the tabletop.

“Do you know if Jonah was having problems with anyone lately? Friends? Anyone bothering him?”

“I don't think so,” he says, wringing his hands in his lap. Another useless answer in a whole string of them. People never had problems with Jonah and Jonah never had problems with them. He’d warned Christopher once that most weren't worth the trouble.

Christopher also didn't know of the secrets Jonah might be keeping from their parents, if any at all—his brother was honest to a fault—and he couldn't be sure whether or not there'd been a call; Christopher had been too busy stewing in his room after learning of the Thatcher’s dinner invite.

Tate jots this down in boxy lettering. “I got one more question for you, then you can catch up on some sleep,” she mutters, lowering her pen and looking him right in the eye. “Before he went to the Thatcher’s, did Jonah seem upset? Did anything seem… off?”

Christopher casts his memory back a final time, thinking of the vacant look in Jonah's eyes.

“A little…” he says. “He was all pale and stuff.”

“Mhm. Your mom said he looked a little sick. You think that's the case?”

“Maybe. But that doesn't seem right… Jonah’s a lot more tired when he's sick and doesn't like being around others in case he'll get them sick, too, and…” Christopher hesitates. “And he smelled funny.”

“Funny,” Tate repeats. He can't tell if she thinks it's a silly observation or not.

“Yeah,” he finishes. “Like dirt. He smelled like dirt after it rains.”
Tate notes this down, as she has with everything else. “That's good, kid,” she says. “Real good. You're pretty observant, aren't you? Good quality to have.”

Under different circumstances, he might’ve had the sense to thank her for the compliment.

Once the interview is over and Sheriff Tate is at the last dregs of her coffee—having swallowed it down with surprising speed—Christopher is sentenced upstairs under the expectation he'll go to bed. He doesn't, of course, crouching instead by the banister at the top, listening to his dad and Tate's voices drift up from the entryway.

“What do you recommend we do, sheriff?” he hears his dad ask. “I could go out— ”

“What I recommend,” Tate interjects. “Is that you stay right where you are now.”

Several seconds skip by in silence. Rodney scoffs, heat built up behind the sound.

“You can't expect me to just sit around while my son is missing,” he insists.

“He’s not really missing, is he…” Sally asks faintly.

“Well… Yeah,” Tate replies. “He is. That's the only thing we know for sure. What we don't know is why. Could be that he's trying to rebel a bit and’ll be back by morning. Could be that he's decided to run away.”

“...Jonah? What—No, no… He'd never.”

“You never know what they're hiding, Sally.”

“I don't give a damn what the reason is,” Rodney snaps. “If something’s happened to him, then it's these hours right now that are the most crucial.”

“And I understand that, Rodney, but my hands are tied. There's not much I can do yet. I'm gonna head over to the Thatcher's and take a look around—ask some questions, just like I did here—then drive around town. See if I can find them. If they're not back by morning, we’ll talk about sending out a search party. For now, let's just hope it doesn't come to that.”

Chapter Text

There are three things Laura is certain of in regards to the missing boys. One is that they can't be far. Will's red Mustang is still parked in the driveway of the Thatcher's white-stucco residence, and none of the family’s four other cars (luxury or not) are missing. The Henris’s pickup and station wagon are the only vehicles available for stealing on Jonah's side, but those are tucked safely in their driveway as well. Either they left on foot or hitched a ride with someone else, and with the information she has now, the first of the two options is more likely. She can't puzzle out why, though, when Coldwater is situated in Middle-of-Nowhere, Missouri. It'd take them at least a day or two to get anywhere without a car at a high-jog.

The second is that they aren't at a party, like dispatch thinks. She drives past all the usual places the kids gather for a high and they're all lights-out, empty as the beer cans that probably pepper the perimeters. On the fourth run, she even parks her car and surveys the areas in-person, just to be sure. Her initial estimation is proven correct each time: Coldwater is dead.

The third is that their disappearances—regardless of the circumstances behind them—have something to do with the woods.

Unlike her other theories, there's nothing to support this one besides the fact that Jonah smelled like wet dirt at the time of his departure—according to Christopher, at least. Laura has already come up with multiple ways it could be reasoned out. He could’ve gone tromping through a garden, for example, or been tilling the earth (whatever farm kids did) when the rain came down late that night and early into the morning. But if his brother thought it was odd enough to mention, then it has to hold some sort of significance. She's learned her lesson when it comes to ignoring the little things.

She drives to the westernmost edge of town with no more leads than when she left the Henris's. Laura pulls past the Coldwater Welcomes You! sign onto the side of the road and kills the engine, grasping the steering wheel as she gazes out at the jagged grass and towering, thick-bellied trees not far beyond. It's a sea of black pines and red oaks, though you wouldn't be able to tell, cloaked as they are in the 5 A.M. light—or the absence thereof, depending on which way you looked at it. The sun’ll be rising soon, come to rend the shroud in half like Moses at the Red Sea, but for now it's a formless, solid wall of nothingness, extraterrestrial in essence—older than the town itself, or the man-made water hole the founders cleaved into its side. A bad infection, polluted all around. An open wound.

Laura stays parked there and stares for a long while—longer than she should—thinking of wild Will and his red-headed shadow and the shadow's shadow: little Christopher and his too-bright, questioning eyes. Her mind stumbles over them, back a couple decades. She would've blamed it on the circumstances, but she'd be lying if she said there hasn't been a single night in over 20 years that it didn't wander like this. She's always believed that as long as she doesn't acknowledge it in the morning, then it didn't really happen. Woman of principle, and all that.

She lets out a sigh, shoving her key in the ignition. The headlights spear through the treeline, but it doesn't make the wall look any more natural. The itch for a cigarette throbs numbly in her and she knows, instinctively, that she might not be able to ride out her principles the rest of the night.

Chapter Text

By morning, there's still no sign of his brother. No Will, either. Sheriff Tate comes by to briefly question them again, wondering if any details might've resurfaced after the daze of last night. There's nothing he or his parents can offer, so at 7:16 A.M., she leaves and takes Rodney with her to form a search party. Christopher and his mom watch from the porch as his rusty pickup ambles after her Caprice.

Sally's hand on his shoulder is a clammy vice, her tone somewhat lacking when she says they should get ready for church. Christopher almost lets slip that he doesn’t want to go, thinking she might change her mind about letting him join the search party if he asks again, but thinks better of it and does as he’s told. They sit in the pews at the very back, his mom picking at the paronychium of her short nails as scripture tangled around them. Christopher picks up on bits of Reverend Cates’ service here and there—sin, redemption, personal responsibility—but his focus wavers too much for them to have much meaning.

A sizable chunk of the congregation is gone, and from the looks the stragglers cast him and his mom, he thinks he knows why. Christopher does his best to ignore their stares, but he's no better. He often finds himself glancing at the second row of pews on the right side of the church, where the golden heads of the Thatchers are bent over in quiet submission. Today, there are only two: Edith Thatcher—hair curled up like those women in the 1950’s pinup magazines his mom keeps an old stash of in the attic—and the youngest of her three children, Grace, who he used to have a crush on in third grade. Wayne and Will aren't there for reasons none too obvious, and Clement—the bigger, stockier, less-pious version of the already un-pious Will—hasn't been to church since he left for Mizzou last year.

When it comes time for the closing prayer, he clasps his hands together and asks more humbly than anyone in the history of the world has ever asked something of God before for Him to bring Jonah home. He doesn't care how childish he sounds when he promises to never complain about chores again, or when he says he doesn't mind if they don't get to watch Predator before the rent on the VHS expires. His dad says you shouldn't bargain with God, but Christopher would go so far as to gamble with Him if it got him his brother.

He opens his eyes to find his mom looking at the Thatchers. She rises from her seat with ghost-like quality as the service comes to an end, taking Christopher’s wrist and tugging him to follow. Edith Thatcher notices their approach instantaneously, as if she'd been watching through invisible eyes in the back of her skull. In a very similar fashion, she takes Grace’s hand and drags her out of the church, flashing tight smiles at the people in the crowd bubbling around her. The last he sees of them is Grace’s ponytail and petal-pink skirt bouncing behind her.

Sally tenses like a wind-up toy some kid dropped and forgot in the middle of the aisle. The crowd's attention shifts from the disappeared Thatchers to them, including Reverend Cates’. His mouth bobs open, but Christopher doesn't get to hear whatever he was about to say. His mom ushers him toward the entrance at a speed that rivals Edith’s, nearly shoving him toward the car once they're past the front steps.

Her reflection in the rear view mirror is paler than usual. She fumbles with the keys.

“Mom?” he asks, hating how small his voice sounds.

“Sorry, honey,” she says. “Sorry, it's fine—I'm fine, I mean.” She pauses. “Do you wanna go for a ride on Cricket when we get home? Or I could make you an early lunch. Is there anything you feel like having?”

Christopher chews his lower lip. “I’m not really hungry…”
“Okay. Yeah. Yeah, that’s fine.”

She puts the station wagon into drive and grips the steering wheel with white-knuckled fists. The ride home is quiet.

Chapter Text

Late in the afternoon, after hours of tortured silence, Rodney returns to the farm empty-handed. He tells them about the search—or rather, he pops a Bud light, ranting to Sally as he paces the living room; Jonah eavesdrops from the dining room, pretending to do leftover homework while listening to music on Jonah's Walkman. He hears that his dad, Wayne, Sheriff Tate, and a group of men and women most familiar with the land surrounding Coldwater—mainly hunters—have combed the woods since sunup, yelling Will and Jonah’s names into the dense emptiness; marking trees with ribbons so as not to get lost. The ground was still muddy and supple from yesterday’s rain, making the already rough terrain even harder to traverse and hindering the search dogs’ ability to pick up a strong scent.

By 12:00 P.M., more volunteers had arrived. Tanner Schmidt and Matthew Cook came with their dads, along with several guys from the football team and Marissa Sanders, who devolved into a bout of tears when the possibility of never seeing her boyfriend again hit five minutes in. Sheriff Tate coordinated with the nearest county deputies to expand the search around 2 P.M., but the effort hasn't brought them any closer to finding the boys.

“It's like they evaporated, Sal,” Rodney says. His dad's always had a robust voice, but it hasn't carried this deeply in a while.

“We've searched over half that damn forest. They're nowhere.”
His mom's voice is delicate, harder to make out. “Maybe they’re not in the woods, then…”

“Where else would they be?” The pacing stops. “No one in the nearby towns has so much as seen anyone who matches their descriptions. Unless they haven't come forward yet, which makes no fucking sense. None of this makes any sense, Sal.”

Christopher sets his pen on the table, no longer bothering to hide that he's listening. He doubts his parents will notice, anyway.

“He didn't run away,” Sally says, less to her husband and more to herself, like uttering the words aloud will somehow make them more true.

“You don't think he did. Right, Rodney?” she asks after a time.
“I don't know what I think,” is all Rodney offers.

Boots thud against the floor. Christopher turns at the sound to see his dad in the entryway yet again, tugging on his Marine’s cap and burrowing into his jacket. Christopher’s at his side before he can even register the movements it took to get him there. He pleads nonsense in a bid to be taken along, swearing things he won't remember come morning. He will remember, however, how sharply his dad's words beat him back, and the scratchy-soft sensation of his dad's coat against his cheek as he held him, and the scrape of his calloused thumb against his cheek when the tears came. Warmth is nothing without the contrast of its truancy, and Christopher will remember that, too. He'll remember how his dad pushed him to his mom's arms without a goodbye, and the cold shiver of air that gusted through the house when he opened the door to leave. He'll remember that might've been the start or the end, or something in-between.

Chapter Text

Rodney speeds down miles of cracked tar, pushing hard on the gas until he recognizes the road he's been looking for. He turns right and shudders along the bumps in the gravel, pulling into a ditch when the grass starts to rise and the trees grow thicker. Shouldering on his backpack and a pair of heavy-duty gloves, he closes the door to his F-150 as quietly as he can and heads east, into the maw of the godforsaken woods. In one hand he grips a Maglite, in the other a .357 Magnum. Thoughts brew discontentedly in his head, egged on by the cold and the midnight-black. Most of them are of Jonah, some of Will, a few of Wayne—how the man swore on God’s name that he'd scraped his lodge's grounds from top to bottom in search of the boys.

Put simply, Rodney thought he was full of shit. He didn't trust the Thatchers as far as he could throw them—Wayne least of all—and if he had to take matters into his own hands, then he would. If finding Jonah meant defying Wayne; the rest of the Commie, dick-sucking bastards he associated himself with at the Meridian Lodge; and the law itself, then he would.

Rodney’s only been on the lodge's grounds once, way back in high school. He and a couple friends had been on a kick of rebelliousness, sneaking out late at night to do weed in their truck beds and breaking in anywhere they reckoned they could escape easily enough. One summer evening, during a drug-induced mania, they got to thinking about how much they hated Wayne and the rest of the Thatchers, resulting in them conjuring up ways they could get back at the whole family. It’d been mindless gibberish until someone brought up the lodge, at which point the jokes became a joyride down 97 and a giddy ignorance of the NO TRESPASSING signs nailed to trees along the property’s perimeter.

He'd felt like something was off about the place as soon as he'd adjusted to the abrupt lack of light—the branches overhead were so thick they strangled what little sun tried peeking through. Every cicada seemed to fall silent; every bird’s flutter and caw fell away. It was cold and dead and quiet. Rodney’d been certain they were the only living beings there—maybe all the world, just a moment.

“Who’s there?”

Rodney halts, cocking his pistol on reflex. Whoever had come up behind him must’ve heard. There's the click of a second firearm, the rustle of fabric as someone takes aim.

“Hands up where I can see them,” a woman orders. Her voice is sharp and dry, recognizable on a second go.

Rodney puts his hands up and cranes his neck to look at her.

“Sheriff?” he ventures.

Sure enough, he sees Sheriff Tate standing several feet behind him, her gun knocked at the center of his back. She gapes in surprise, mouth falling open.

“Rodney?” She lowers her gun, but not too far. “Jesus Christ, I almost shot a hole through your chest! What’re you doing out here?”

Rodney drops his hands.

“Take a wild guess,” he says.

Her mouth pinches. “I thought we agreed to continue the search in the morning.”

“You and the rest of ‘em did, Sheriff. Not me. This search doesn't end until I find my son.”

“Right…” Tate eyes him critically. “And you think he's in there?”

“I have no fucking clue where he is, Laura,” he says gruffly. “That's the whole goddamn point.”

Rodney gestures around with his Maglite. She squints, its corn-colored glow catching her in the eye.

“What you're doing here is the real question.” His brow furrows. “Are you working with Wayne?”

“What the hell are you talking about— ” Tate swears under her breath, finally letting her gun aim at the ground. “Put that thing down before you blind me, Henris. And use your indoor voice. Jesus. You're talking like you're tryin’ to get caught.”

He glowers but does as she says. Several emotions war on Tate's haggard face: reluctance, annoyance, restraint. None of them good, and her dark circles from earlier have only become more pronounced in a few hours’ time.

“I…” she starts. Sighs. “I was just— ”

Tate doesn't get to continue. Branches snap faintly in the distance, followed by the sound of foliage being crushed underfoot. They startle, Tate's gun flying back into position, but the noises don't stop, growing louder as its source wanders closer.

“What is that?”

“Don’t know—but it's not an animal,” Rodney observes. He knows the tread of most wildlife in and around Coldwater, having hunted since he was a kid. This one is too heavy. Too uneven. Human.

“Is that… ”

“Don't you dare, Rodney,” Tate hisses, cutting him off. “It could be anyone.”

They don’t move for several seconds, breath caught in their throats, pulses leaping beneath their skin. The footsteps stop. A voice cleaves out of the twilight, young and shaky; a teenager’s vibrato echoing the refrains of a child.

“Is someone there?”

Rodney’s grip on his Magnum falters.

“Will?” he calls.

It answers tentatively. “Mr. Henris?”

He moves immediately, darting in the path of the voice and ignoring Tate’s bids at him to wait. His boots tear up with bits of earthly flesh each time they come up. Undergrowth claws at his legs in a violent attempt to drag him down, but the thought of his boy oils his old joints, keeping him on his feet.

He emerges into a small nick of land where the trees are spaced marginally farther apart and comes to a stop, turning in every direction.

“Will? Jonah?” he shouts. “Where are you? Will!”

“Rodney!” Tate materializes next to him, hair coming undone. “Where's—Shit.”

They fall silent. The expressions on their faces speak enough when Will Thatcher unfurls from between the gaps of two great trees, shielding his face from the Maglite. He's shaped like a reckoning in its beam, half-angel and half-boy, dirt salted in his hair and something spiritual in the way his body sags—an answer begging to come undone.

Will stumbles. Tate rushes to his side. Rodney waits, but Jonah never walks out.

Chapter Text

“I made this for you.”

Mariana Álvarez holds out a plastic container of blue-frosted sugar cookies with rainbow sprinkles. Christopher stares at it. Mariana stares at Christopher.

“Oh,” Christopher says. He glances at the clock above the door to the principal’s office, ignorant of the flush blossoming across the apples of her cheeks. 3:56 P.M. “For me?”

She nods. “Your mom and dad, too. And Jonah when he gets back. It said his favorite color is blue in his senior section of the paper, so I used that for the frosting. My mom helped with it. The frosting, I mean. But she also helped with the cookie part. She did most of the work, actually.”

“Thanks...” Christopher takes the container from her. “I’ll tell him they're from you.”

He’s halfway to the exit before she can blink, throwing the cookies in the makeshift basket of his Huffy BMX before she can tell him that she really hopes Jonah is found. He peddles hard from the schoolyard to main street, letting his bike crash into the brick wall of the police station once he arrives.

Denise the Secretary, Raymond O’Donoghue, and Sheriff Tate are deep in conversation when he barrels in. Denise jumps, placing a pudgy hand over her heart. Raymond, one of Jonah's classmates, offers a small smile. Tate takes one look at him and shakes her head, trudging into her office.

“C’mon,” she says, and tells Denise to help Raymond with his query. Christopher follows.

On Tuesday (not Monday, because his mom wouldn't let him leave the farm), he brought her a crumpled note of questions (What did Will say about Jonah? Was there anything else you found in the woods? How far did you go?); on Wednesday, old newspaper clippings of past disappearances in the county—few and far between though they may be—stashed safely in a Ziploc bag. Today, he takes out a notebook and flips past pages of scribbled doodles to the very back, where he’d drawn a map of the woods during Social Studies class. He made sure to outline every trail in Sharpie and circle each location of note with a red pen.

Tate scans it over, frowning.

“What am I looking at?”

“It’s a map!” Christopher bursts, frustrated. “See?”

He jabs a finger at what he has marked as the “Tornado Tree,” named as such because of its twisty trunk. He remembers Jonah mentioning it once a long time ago—something about him third-wheeling there while Will and Marissa were on a date.

“There might be clues.”

“Pretty sure we’ve checked around there,” Tate says, choosing not to tell him how wildly off his coordinates are.

“Yeah? Well, over here— ”

He moves his finger southward, down to some rocks a little ways from a crooked approximation of a walking trail.

“Jonah and Will went camping with my dad. Six years ago, I think? I was too little to go, but maybe they went— ”

“Been there, too.”

“What about— ”

“Mhm.”

Christopher snatches his notebook back, shoving it into his backpack.

“Fine!” he says. “But you can’t argue with this.”

The notebook is replaced with a Polaroid of a tree trunk. Ordinary at first glance, but marred by a couple of faint scratches upon closer inspection. He feels hope swell in his chest as Tate drags it toward herself, eyeing the photo for a good minute or so. Her frown deepens.

“Where did you find this?”

“Near those rocks. Sorta. It wasn't that near, actually. It was more east—at least I think it was east ‘cause the sun was setting—but yeah, it's gotta mean something.”

Tate looks up from the Polaroid. His hope deflates.

“So you were in the woods,” she pieces together.

His lack of answer tells her everything she needs to know.

“Christopher, you can't be going in there,” Tate says sternly. “It's not safe. The area is off-limits for everyone but the volunteers, not just you, alright?”

“But it's not safe for Jonah, either!” Christopher argues. “That's why I have to help find him.”

“You can help by not throwing yourself headfirst into danger and giving me one more thing to worry about.” She massages her forehead. “Jesus. You're just like your father.”

Christopher balls his hands into fists, feeling a protest build in his throat. It dies quick and sudden, like most things have these past four days. Every hour, it seems, the pit of bleakness devouring all urges to eat and sleep and live the normal way—the way he did before Will was found and Jonah wasn't—widens by a stretch.

“Let me volunteer,” he says.

“No. Besides the fact that Rodney would go witchhunting for me, you're too young.”

“I'm not young,” he grumbles, thinking of how he'd be thirteen next March. “And even if I was, I'm still doing more than everyone else in town who isn't part of the search! Which is a lot of them, by the way. They're all just sitting around, waiting for bad news or something.” He huffs. “They're acting like he's dead.”

Tate doesn't say anything for a moment, the stillness of her frame unreadable. Finally she opens one of her desk drawers and takes from it a manilla folder.

“Tell you what,” she says. “Give me that map of yours and I'll keep it here to look back on. There's a chance it can be of some help in the future.”

Christopher meets her steady gaze. “Really?”

“Yup.”

“The picture, too?”

“Picture, too.”

Once he's torn out the map, she slips both into the folder, labeling it Evidence C (for Christopher).

“I meant what I said, Christopher. No more going into the woods.”

He slings his backpack on and looks down at her desk. It's a purely functional piece of furniture, decorated with an old lamp that might have been from the 70s; a gray, boxy radio scanner; a cup of coffee with the steam still curling; and a stack of fraying notebooks, lined paper popping out the tops and the bottoms. No personal mementos whatsoever.

“...Okay,” he agrees begrudgingly.

“If there's a next time, your dad's gonna be the first to hear about it.”

“Okay, okay,” Christopher says. “There won't be. I promise.”

“Good.”

The smile she gives him is tight as she rises to open the door, but there's a bit of warmth nonetheless.

“Now hurry on home before your parents start to worry.”

Chapter Text

If home is the universe, then Jonah is the sun. His dad is Jupiter and his mom is Venus, and Christopher is a forgotten comet pinging back and forth across the nebulas, dimension-hopping through black holes in hopes of keeping the rest of the planets in orbit.

His dad’ll soon wear a track into the living room floor with often he paces. His mom is constantly wringing her hands, twisting her slender golden wedding ring around her bony finger. She bites her lip whenever Rodney leaves the farm to search for Jonah, which is any time that isn’t spent pacing. Most of the work on the farm is relegated to Christopher and Travis Buchell, an old friend who’s offered to help their family in any way he can. Sally moves carefully, lighter than chimes, laughing at Travis’s half-hearted jokes so quietly it’s like she’s afraid the air will shatter if she goes any louder. She holds Mariana Álvarez’s container of cookies like they’re the most precious thing in the world.

“That’s so nice of her,” she murmurs, peeling back the lid. Her days on the brown recliner in the living room, next to the landline. Christopher takes care of all the untouched plates she leaves on the coffee table.

“Is she a friend of your’s?”

Christopher shrugs, sitting on the couch. “Not really.”

“Why not?”

“I dunno. I don’t have a lotta friends.” Or any, but she doesn’t have to know that. “I guess I haven’t talked to her much.”

“Maybe you should.”

She snaps the lid back on and sets it aside. Christopher stamps down the worry in his tone.

“Aren’t you gonna try one?” he asks.

“Later, honey,” Sally says, and smiles wanely. “Not feeling too peckish.”

Rodney comes home at midnight again. Christopher hears him from upstairs. His anger wafts through the house, thick and pungent. He imagines his dad throwing his hat on the floor, the way he did yesterday, and him sitting on the couch, holding his head in his hands. He imagines his mom beside him, wiping at her cheeks, saying silly things so she doesn’t have to think.

Chapter Text

Christopher asks Sally if she’ll go riding after school and—to his surprise—she agrees. Cricket goes wild at sight of them, braying and tossing her head. Sally shushes the mare soothingly, running a hand along her cheek. He watches them periodically as he saddles Bandit from the stall across, trying to puzzle out if it’s the barn light making his mom shine so white. It’s easy to tell how happy the horses are, though, especially when they ride out to the pasture.

Sally’s hair licks the wind, free and flame-like. Christopher follows at a trot, a funny feeling stirring in him. She looks like she stepped out of an old picture, the ones where she’s riding along the creek of her daddy’s farm in Iowa: unapologetically young, the sun refracted in her smile. That’d been before she met Rodney in college—before she became a wife and a mother.

They ride for a long time in the quiet. Birds circle overhead. The autumn sun bears gently down, and the sway of the horses bellies an inexplicable longing. Christopher hates it, almost, because the peace is nothing more than disguised wrongness. It’s foul. The world should be raging. Lightning should strike down the trees. Thunder should unravel the sky. The hand of God should smote the town from its roots. How can everything else go on while they’re stuck waiting?

Sally eventually comes to a stop by the fence. She climbs off Cricket’s back and leans with one hand on the nearest post, holding her reins in the other. Christopher copies artlessly. They stand together, looking out at the highway as he flounders for something to say. They used to talk all the time during their rides, Socratic discussions that ranged from facts he’d learned at school to new saddles they can't afford to spoil Cricket and Bandit with. Now he can’t manage a single word, and Jonah isn’t there to fill in the silence. He is the silence itself.

“It’s a nice day,” he murmurs.

“Isn’t it?” Sally doesn’t acknowledge him beyond that. She says she bets Jonah is enjoying it, too, wherever he is at the moment.

“Yeah,” Christopher agrees, and tries hard to keep his voice steady. “I bet he is.”

Chapter Text

They leave early in the morning and head to the print shop on main street. Sally hands the owner, Mr. Simons, a torn snatch of notebook paper detailing Jonah's height and weight, eye and hair color, the Levi's and Metallica shirt he was last seen wearing. Mr. Simons pushes up the round glasses perched on his stubby nose to better examine the picture Sally slides onto the counter.

“You want this copied?”

Sally nods.

“How many prints?”

“At least fifty to start. Maybe more later.”

“We can do black and white or grayscale. Color's gonna cost extra.”

“Black and white is fine.”

“Standard letter size? Or do you want bigger?”

“Bigger,” Christopher pipes from his mom's side. “So people notice.”

They get a stack of 11x17 posters printed with Jonah's face (discounted) and brand the town with them. Anyone who walks past a telephone pole, or the bulletin boards in Coldwater Grocer and the post office, or the storefront windows of Carrie’s Crazy Clips and the hardware shop, will be forced to acknowledge Jonah—to see him smiling at them from his bedroom floor and remember.

They hit the three nearest towns in the county and distribute the rest of the posters. Sally—wrapped tightly in a shearling coat—skims the tips of her fingers over Jonah's jagged hair and crooked teeth with each one she hangs, the only pop of color against his faded profile. She and Christopher have lunch at a sports bar, but most of it goes in a styrofoam takeout box.

Sheriff Tate holds a press conference at the police station that evening, and Rodney comes home afterwards in the worst rage he’s been in since Jonah disappeared. He barges into the kitchen, fury quaking through him. Christopher and Sally wake from the strange reverie induced by their cold microwavable dinners and the two empty seats at the table.

“They're cutting back their resources,” Rodney lashes, his arms crossed. “No more wide-scale searches.”

Sally lowers her fork.

“...What do you mean? Are you saying— ” She briefly closes her eyes, shaking her head infinitesimally. “Are they not going to look for him anymore? What does that mean, Rodney?”

“It means Jonah's no longer a priority. They said they can't continue expending resources when they don't even know if he's— ” Rodney chokes off, turning his head so Sally and Christopher can't see his face. The room holds its breath.

“They won't stop looking for him entirely,” Rodney continues. He speaks evenly, without inflection. “But they're going to rely primarily on leads from now on. Got no idea what else they'd be using their shit on, but that's how it's gonna be.”

He leaves to continue his search, allowing the house one tremulous gasp before slamming the door. Christopher and Sally go to bed early, their bones still rattling.

Chapter Text

Reverend Cates gives a stirring sermon during the Sunday service and leads a special prayer thanking God for Will’s safe return. He implores the Lord that Jonah Henris receive the same grace, and that the souls of his beloved father and mother and brother find peace during his absence. Christopher is privately grateful when it's over.

The eyes of the congregation are either on them or pointedly fixed away as Sally gathers her purse and Christopher ties his scarf. Mrs. Kelley from the pew in front touches Sally's forearm lightly, mottled face splitting into a morose smile. Sally jumps, but Mrs. Kelley doesn't seem to notice. Her perm looks like a bowl of coiled snakes.

“I knew Jonah,” she croaks, the lady next to her nodding pleasantly. “A lovely boy, just lovely.”

Christopher frowns. His mom laughs, though there’s nothing in particular to laugh at.

“Yes,” she says shakily. “He is.”

“I hope they find him.”

“I hope so, too.”

She disentangles herself from Mrs. Kelley’s hold and takes Christopher's hand, drawing him after her. They don't get far. Someone else who knew Jonah and thought he was a lovely boy accosts them as soon as they're out of their seats. A second and third arrive, forming a collective swarm of well-wishers whose names Christopher struggles to remember. They talk in goodbyes, as if his brother is buried under six feet of dirt and not still out there somewhere, trapped in those woods that devoured him and Will. They don't understand that Jonah is okay, which Christopher knows to be true because Jonah's favorite book in their childhood was about wilderness survival.

It sets Christopher’s blood aflame. Not so much, however, as the sight of the Thatchers scurrying from the church without so much as a glance in their direction. Wayne’s arm is snuggled about Edith's waist, his broad hand against Grace's shoulders; Will the duckling in his wake.

Christopher glares at Will’s gray-suited back so hard he thinks the veins in his eyes will burst from the pressure. Perhaps it's hard enough that Will feels it, because he looks over his shoulder as the rest of his family is crossing the threshold of the door. He locks eyes with Christopher for an infinitesimal second, the canary blue of his clashing with the forget-me-not of Christopher's. His mouth falls open just so, forming a slit too small for the unspoken. Wayne grabs his arm and yanks him forward, severing the invisible line connecting them.

“Hey!” Christopher shouts before his brain can catch up with his tongue. “Stop!”

“Christopher— ” Sally says, grabbing uselessly at him as he pushes past the surrounding people and chases the Thatchers. He doesn't even know what he wants from them—an explanation or an apology or an acknowledgement.

He slows to a stop on the sidewalk, watching the family pile into their sedan. Wayne throws him a pitying glance as he settles into the driver's seat, and something visceral sinks its teeth into Christopher’s lungs. It's hard to breathe as he screams at them.

“Where's Jonah?!” he demands. “Where's my brother?!”

They back up, the navy blue of their Lincoln piercing in the morning sun. He can't tell if he's having trouble seeing them because of their tinted windows or because of the tears in his eyes.

“You can't just do that!” His voice breaks. “You can't just leave!”

But they do. They peel down the street and around the corner, so slow it burns like salt in a wound.

Chapter Text

2:34 P.M. The phone echoes throughout the pitchy house. Sally leaps to her feet, a crinkle of hope in her tone when she asks who's speaking. It soon smooths out.

Rodney stops home at 6:17 P.M. and sits at the dinner table in what used to be his usual spot. He rests his elbow on top and holds his cap slightly off his hair, leaning his forehead on the inside of his wrist. Christopher is there as well, slouched stubbornly in his chair. Sally looms over them. The flower-shaped kitchen lamp beams down, stamen-like, pronouncing the hollows beneath her cheek bones and eye sockets. None of the other lights are on.

“And Edith Thatcher called this afternoon,” she says. “She said he scared Grace.”

“Hold on, start from the beginning,” Rodney sighs. “What happened at church?”

Sally presses her lips together. “Christopher chased the Thatcher's down and blamed them for… for whatever happened to Jonah.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Christopher mutters.

“It was implied, whether you meant it or not.”

“Well—She’s lying,” he decides.

“Christopher, please…”

“She has to be! Grace would never be scared of that.” She's the only girl in his class he's heard swear, and she doesn’t scream when there’s a bug in the classroom.

“That doesn't make it any less wrong.”

Christopher tenses, playing with the sleeve of his green flannel. Sally's withering look bolts him down.

“I just think they shouldn't ignore you. It's like they're avoiding us or something. It’s not fair.”

She crosses her arms under her chest. “What's not fair?”

“That— ” Christopher falters. He isn't quite sure what he means. Is it not fair that the Thatchers get to have Will back, no matter if his gets to have Jonah? Is it not fair that they get to drive away in their pretty Lincoln, regardless of whether or not Jonah will ever get to ride a car again? Or maybe he's already emerged on the wrong side of the woods and someone napped him and Jonah is in a car, one crossing state lines. Maybe he left of his own violation, like Will told Sheriff Tate the night he was found, and is sitting at a gas station in Denver, waiting for a soul with enough kindness and gas to take him the rest of the way to California. Maybe they'll only hear of him ten years down the line, when he's finally made it big as the lead guitarist in a metal band the magazines call “genre-defying.”

Christopher doesn't believe any of that, but his mom sometimes wonders aloud when she thinks he isn't listening, her worst fears laid bare and cold when there isn't anyone else to dissect the truth. It's the unknown that scares her the most, and the Thatchers will never have to reckon with it the way she is now. He realizes how horrible it would sound to say that he doesn't think it's fair, so he bites his tongue.

“I don't see what the problem is,” Rodney grunts.

Sally turns her withering look on him.

“How can you say that?” she asks. “They don't deserve our scrutiny, Rodney, no matter whatever crazy blood feud you have going on with Wayne. They lost their son, too.”

“But they got him back.” He speaks gravely. “Chris is right, Sal. The Thatchers shouldn't be allowed to walk away from this. They should be on their knees apologizing for the hell their son of bitch boy has put us through.”

Sally is rendered speechless.

“Did you just— ” She draws air in deep through her nose and continues weakly. “It wasn't Will’s fault. Jonah was the one who— ”

“The hell it wasn’t, Sally!” Rodney slams a fist on the table and lurches suddenly from his seat. Sally flinches. Christopher slinks further into his chair.

“Tell me you believe that,” Rodney challenges. The devil curls in his cadence. “Honestly. Look me in the eye and tell me Jonah would’ve ran away. And through those fucking woods? C’mon. Tell me.”

Sally doesn’t.

“Did Edith even do anything other than complain when she called you?”

No answer.

Rodney throws his hands up. “I knew it.”

“What do you want, Rodney?!” Sally asks, desperate.

“You don't want to know.”

“Blaming them—It isn’t going to do anything. It won't bring Jonah back!”

“Sure, but it makes me feel a whole damn lot better.”

He shoves his cap back on and stalks out of the room. Christopher watches, wide-eyed and immobile. Sally rocks with tremors.

“Where are you going?” she calls, on the edge of cracking. “Rodney?!”

“To find our son.”

Chapter Text

A month before he disappeared, Jonah asked Will if he ever thought about leaving Coldwater. Will said yes, duh, you know I do. What kind of question is that? They'd decided back in sixth grade to leave and never come back (except to attend the occasional Christmas dinner and class reunion). They'd go to college at the University of Missouri and split the rent for an apartment after graduation. Will would pursue his legacy scholarship for football and Jonah would major in music composition. They might end up broke, but at least they could sleep in cots next to each other at the homeless shelter.

I don't mean in the future, Jonah said. I mean now.

Will thought he was joking. He laughed and played along. Yeah, he replied. If our dads don't fucking slaughter us. Sure, why not?

He drained the rest of his pop. Jonah hadn't been joking, though, and he saw that in his face when he crushed the can between his palms. He was wearing his Un-Jolly Jonah expression, the one he put on whenever he was thinking too hard: forehead wrinkled, tongue poking into the pale skin of his cheek.

What about Marissa? he asked.

What about her? Will was slower this time, trying to gauge the meaning behind his questions.

She'd miss you.

Jonah, I really have no idea what you're trying to say.

Nothing, I guess… Just wondering.

Well, don't. Will pushed off the hood of his car and punched Jonah playfully in the shoulder. He smiled at last, the fluorescent lights of the Phillips 66 tangling in his hair.

Will drove him home and didn't spare the conversation a second thought. But Jonah brought it up again the following week. He spoke the way a prophet might, describing visions of a future far from Coldwater whenever they came to him. In them, he was free to do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, no parents or obligations holding him down. Sometimes Will was with him. Sometimes he wasn't.

He told Jonah over and over how crazy he was. This is our last year, he said. We had everything planned! Can't you just wait until after grad? I swear I'll go with you, okay? Wherever it is you've been wanting to escape. Come on, Jonah. Please.

Jonah wouldn't listen. He didn't care. When Un-Jolly Jonah got caught up in the thousands of thoughts tangled in his head, only miracles could pull him free. Will liked to consider that his job, like how Jonah's job was to slap the sense into him—literally and figuratively—whenever he got the craving for a bad decision. He'd given it up a while ago, though. There'd be little light to live by if he stole the stars from Jonah's eyes.

On the morning of October 16, during a hangout in Will’s bedroom, they got into an argument. Will accused Jonah of being impatient and irresponsible, and Jonah called Will a liar. If he truly meant it all those times he said he'd leave with Jonah, then he wouldn't be hesitating so much.

I'm gonna go, Jonah said. Whether you're coming or not.

He was Will’s antithesis in every respect. Their anger wasn't the same breed, and he left the Thatcher's in wordless fury. Will had been too mad to go after him at first, telling himself there was no way Jonah would go through with it. He knew him better than that. Then the doubts started trickling in, one by one, increasing in frequency till they came down in sheets.

This isn't just about running away, he thought as he rushed towards the nearest trail alongside the woods, where Jonah said he was going to visit—a couple of turns from his side of town. Right, right, left. Empty streets and white-flower ditches, the sunset bleeding into the treeline. He ducked inside and didn't look back.

That was what had happened leading up to his and Jonah's disappearance. According to Will.

Laura's picked the story apart more times than she can count on both hands, in the shower and at the bar and sitting in her plastic lawn chair, swilling cancer into her lungs. Something is off about it, but she can't place her finger on what. Not that she’d have any evidence to support her suspicions either way. All she's got is a feeling. A hunch.

Will had quaked like a leaf when she brought him in for questioning. The first words he said to her were, “Where's Jonah?”

Laura exhales slowly, thinking of the places she'll hit during her search in a couple hours’ time. The county sheriff may have forced her to dial back the efforts of the search party, but she's still been out near every night looking for the Henris boy, sniffing for leads that don't exist in the daytime. She's contacted all the sheriffs in the neighboring towns and then some, much to their annoyance; gone digging through old cold cases; written down the names of every registered kidnapper and killer in half the state. There's so little to work from; too many questions and too few answers. What she knows for certain, however, is that she won't be able to live with herself if she doesn't find out the truth.

“Sheriff Tate?”

Christopher is standing in front of her teak park bench, his sneakers a murky red against the bleached pavement of the street, backpack hanging from his right shoulder and bike at his side. He seems like he came fresh out of school, but if that's true then he should've been released about an hour ago.

“Hey, kid,” she says. “Shouldn't you be at home?” It's been her greeting to him for the past week and counting. Comes out smooth as honey.

“My mom thinks I'm at Art Club.”

“Just Mom? What about Dad?”

He doesn't answer.

“I don't think club-skipping is gonna look good on your middle school record,” Laura continues, rubbing her palms down her thighs.

“I lied about joining. Can I sit?”

Laura makes him wait a bit before gesturing at the empty space next to her. He takes it and holds his backpack in his lap, abandoning his bike in the grass. They sit with their backs to the playground by the pool and face the great nothing-maze of Coldwater, long lines of houses built along sidewalks that end before they lead anywhere. She's old enough to have walked them when they were still nice and pretty.

She glances at Christopher. He's fairly tall for his age, but with his baby fat he looks entirely too young. Round cheeks and fair skin stretched lightly over delicate bone; Rodney’s dark hair and Sally's blue eyes. It's how she might imagine Clark Kent to have looked while he was still living on his parent's farm and the world didn't yet need saving.

“Anyone ever tell you you look like Superman?”

“No,” he says, scuffing a shoe along the ground. “But I wish I was him.”

“Same here. It'd save me a lotta trouble.” She hums. “Batman or Superman?”

He thinks for a second, pausing in his rock-kicking. “Batman. Sheriff Tate?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you know Jonah?”

“No.”

She knew of him. She knew him in passing—the things people thought about him, which wasn't much at all because he kept to himself. She knew he was a good son who went to church every Sunday and rarely caused his parents a fuss. She faintly remembers the sound of his voice, soft and thoughtfully slow. Sometimes he bagged her groceries at the store or walked past her while she was on patrol. He always gave her a smile.

“But you know my dad,” Christopher puzzles.

“Everyone knows your dad. That's just the kind of man he is.” She shrugs. “Don't know your mom that well, and I never said a single word to you before…”

Laura struggles to end that sentence. She can't, so she forgoes it completely. The only things she knows about Christopher is that his favorite colors are red and blue (they're on everything he owns) and that he collects cards from Marvel Universe Series 2 (she sees them in his backpack when he stops at the station with new evidence) and that he watches Unsolved Mysteries (judging from the theories he's come up with about what happened to Jonah). His last class of the day is P.E. and he hates playing dodgeball. He rides his BMX everywhere, pedaling to and from school on dirt roads even though it'd be less of a pain to take the bus or have one of his parents drop him off. He broke his nose by falling off the monkey bars in fourth grade and now it has a slight s-curve. He talks fast when he’s explaining his ideas to her. He gets angry before he lets himself get sad.

“Can’t claim to know you that well, either,” she says.

Christopher looks up at her, something doleful in the motion. “Well, I don't know much about you.”

“There ain't that much to know.”

“What’s your favorite food?”

Laura gives a short laugh. “Pecan pie.”

“Movie?”

“Hud.”

“What about your favorite season?”

“Spring. Your’s?”

“Winter.”

She breathes out dramatically. “Can't agree with you there. Roads are always a pain in the ass once the snow comes down.”

Laura realizes her language and apologizes hastily.

“Don't repeat that,” she says.

“It's okay. My dad sometimes swears when he's talking about the snow, too. My mom likes it, though. She says it's pretty.”

“Fair enough.”

“Did you always wanna be a police officer?”

“...No, not particularly. Just where life led me, I guess.”

“Why?”

“You really should be at home, kid.”

She gets up from the bench. Christopher grabs the sleeve of her jacket. The strength in his grip surprises her.

“Wait,” he pleads. “Jonah didn't run away. You know that, right? He'd never do that.”

Laura studies him.

“Yeah,” she replies. “I know. But that stays between you and me.”

Christopher’s eyes widen. He nods very seriously. A tiny soldier.

“Has my map been helpful?”

She doesn't want to lie, but— “Yeah. It has.”

“Good, ‘cause I was thinking of making another— ”

“Christopher.” Laura puts a hand on his shoulder. “Do you trust me?”

He nods again, this time more hesitant.

“Then I need you to prove it and lay off your search.”

She sees the objection immediately and speaks over him.

“You’re all your parents have right now. Be there for them. If something happens to you…” She sighs. “I'll take care of the rest. I swear.”

“Okay,” he says, so quietly she almost misses it.

“Promise me.”

“I already made a promise to you.”

“Kid…”

“…Fine. I promise.”

He takes up his bike and heads for home as the sun starts to melt. She prays to God for the first time in many years, asking Him that he doesn't get lost along the way.

Chapter Text

His mom doesn't go to church that Sunday. She sits on the unmade bed in Jonah's room and cradles a picture of him in her hands. His dad comes home Halloween night smelling of liquor. Christopher whispers an apology to Sheriff Tate in his head and thanks God that Coldwater isn't any bigger than 2,156 people. With so small a population, everyone attends the same school. That, in turn, means he can keep an eye on Will. He watches him from the back of the lunchroom and looks for him in the halls and loiters fifteen minutes in the schoolyard after the final bell rings so he can bike past the Thatcher's house (mansion) on the northwestern side of town at an unsuspicious time, but not long enough that Will has the opportunity to leave, or to get very far if he does.

If he isn't at football practice, then his Mustang is always in the driveway. It irks Christopher, and that makes him feel guilty. He shouldn't want Will to be the liar he suspects he is—to be keeping secrets. But if he's being honest, who is Christopher supposed to turn to instead, and what does that mean for Jonah? He ponders this during the lunch period Grace sits across from him, abandoning her tray at the table with the better-liked boys and girls in their class. Her arms are crossed, hair bound back in a loose braid. She has the face of a woman in the way she wears it, so drawn and dour.

“You're a shitty stalker, Christopher Henris,” she proclaims.

Christopher is wordless.

“What?” he asks. He hasn't touched his tator tot casserole. Its stench sours the cafeteria air.

“I see you riding past my house every day on your stupid bike. It's creepy. You're lucky I haven't told my mom and dad.”

Christopher’s shock dissipates. He narrows his eyes at her.

“I'm looking for answers,” he says defensively. “Since no one in your family will give mine any.”

She mirrors his expression. “You think we killed him or something?”

“Shut up.”

“Do you? Do you think Will lured him out and— ”

“Go away, Grace.”

He turns aside as far as he can without dragging his tray off the table and shields it protectively with his arm, poking at his mush of potatoes and cheese with a fork. He doesn't see Grace’s stony front falter.

“Will's all torn up about it, you know,” she says, sounding more like a girl than he's ever heard her. “He doesn't eat or sleep. I see the light on under the door at night when I walk by his room to use the bathroom. He wants to join the search party but Mom and Dad won't let him. They think whatever happened to Jonah will happen to him if he goes back out there.”

“Nothing happened to Jonah,” Christopher mutters. “Nothing he won't come back from.”

Grace takes a while to respond.

“You’re silly and stupid, Christopher Henris,” she decides. “And I miss him, too.”

She stomps back to her table, braid thumping in the valley of her narrow shoulders. The other kids’ stares burn into his back. Their whispers curdle in his ear.

When Christopher goes to the football game that evening, he thinks of Grace. A part of him is sinful and selfish and he won't deny it: she doesn't have the right to miss Jonah. He didn't belong to the Thatcher's the way the rest of the town does. Christopher watches the broad-backed Coldwater Cougars ram into the Denville Bears, eyes trained on #32, and wonders if he can trust anything that comes out of Grace’s mouth.

After the Cougars win—thanks to the efforts of #32—they hold a long, terrible prayer for Jonah that reminds him of the one last week at church. His dad's anger ripples across his memory as he burrows into his coat and slinks further into the darkness of the stands. It's a fleeting mercy that no one recognizes him.

The boys file off the field. #32 breaks away, clapping the guy beside him on the back. Christopher discreetly follows as he jogs past the concession stands and the people floundering for his attention, heading straight for the restrooms, moonlight softening its brick shell. He rips off his helmet, opens the door, and locks himself within one of the stalls.

Christopher plants himself by the sinks, stomach hollowing out. Will Thatcher vomits into the toilet, and then he starts to cry.

Chapter Text

Church is skipped again. He says sorry to God and spends the weekend listening to Will cry. He hears him in his sleep, or a creature like him in the branches outside his bedroom window as southerly winds rush over the countryside. It still hasn't rained since Jonah left and he would give any part of himself for a storm to roll in and herald the black skies—for the world to be in pain the way they show it in the movies.

His house aches like an untouched wound, and across the left wall of his room he sticks pins into its dinosaur-wallpapered flesh, trying to reclaim his brother with newspaper clippings and pieces of paper. On them, he has written the names of potential suspects and a timeline of the past three weeks. He thinks of Angela Hammond's abduction in Clinton and Trudy Danbury’s murder in Mack's Creek. He hopes everything and nothing is connected, and claws at his shirt when his throat suddenly tightens, his breath whistling in and out in shuddering gasps. He remembers how his lungs used to work.

In the center, nestled between an official map of Coldwater he stole from the garage and his questions section is one of Jonah's missing person posters. The red string threading all components together exists in his mind alone.

Chapter Text

“I made brownies this time.”

True to her word, Mariana Álvarez is holding a pan of brownies, waiting patiently for him to take them. Christopher isn't sure how he'll be able to bring her gift home without ruining it—the dish is clearly too big to be carried in his basket—but he does anyway and thanks her. She watches him struggle to hold the brownies for a minute or so, standing awkwardly in front of his bike.

“I can carry them home for you, if you want,” she offers.

“Carry?” Christopher looks at her skeptically. “I live kinda far.”

“It's alright. I like to walk.”

They walk. Christopher leads his bike and Mariana holds the brownies. It's a deceptively perfect late-autumn evening. The trees look like skeletons stripped of sinew and muscle. Dead leaves crackle underfoot and soon give way to gravel. Fence-lined pastures unknot alongside them.

“Have you always lived out here?” Mariana asks.

“Yeah,” Christopher says.

“Do you like it?”

“Yeah.”

“It's really pretty.”

“Uh-huh.”

Mariana sucks in her cheeks. Sometimes she glances at him. She's a girl with dark hair and darker eyes that are as wide as a deer’s, framed by olive lids and lashes she curled with her 17-year-old sister's eyelash curler. She wonders if he thinks she's pretty and shames herself for the thought. He's in pain, her mama had told her. It must be some sort of cardinal sin to want a boy to look at you and smile while he's hurting. Mariana does hope he smiles again, though, even if it's not at her.

Christopher, meanwhile, wonders if he should have cup noodles or canned soup for dinner tonight. His mom doesn't cook much anymore. Both options make about the same amount of noise.

He settles on soup. They keep nine different flavors in the pantry. Christopher will make chicken noodle for himself and veggie for Sally. It feels less bad to throw away if it's just soggy carrots and green beans going in the trash.

“Christopher?”

“Yeah?”

“I didn't get to tell you last time, but I really hope Jonah is found.”

She starts to babble when he doesn't reply.

“I pray for him every night. I know it might not mean much to you or do much of anything—and I didn't know him the way you do—but he was—is—a good person, and I don't believe bad things happen to good people. Or at least when they do, they don't stick, y’know? My grandma says there's always something good waiting around the corner, but if you keep your head down you'll miss it.”

Christopher is too tired to come up with a response. Mariana lowers her eyes.

“Sorry,” she says.

“Nothing to be sorry about,” he mutters.

Chapter Text

Mariana sits a seat over from him at lunch. She unpacks a glittery pink lunch box and pushes a baggie containing a small, heart-shaped sandwich at him. He blinks at it.

“That’s for you,” she says. “To apologize for yesterday.”

“I said there’s nothing to be sorry for…” he protests with little fervor.

“I know… I still feel bad, though. I'm not that good at talking and stuff, and I don't wanna make a bad impression but I feel like I did.”

She declares this in one great, extended breath and waits expectantly for him to open the baggie.

“I don't…” He shakes his head. “Why?”

“Hm?”

“Why do you care?”

Mariana fidgets with the sleeves of her sweater. “I don't know.”

“You never bothered to talk to me before.”

Sure, they're both in seventh grade and have been classmates since pre-school, but that doesn't mean he knows anything about her or has an obligation to. Christopher’s always existed on the fringes of his class. All he knows about Mariana is that her family's from Spain and she usually sits three spots over from Grace.

“You don't have to know someone to care about them. I think it's nicer that way, actually.”

“Or weird.”

He feels a little bad for the look of embarrassment on her face, which is anatomically pleasant and shaped the same as her sandwich.

“Can I get to know you, then?” Mariana asks.

Christopher looks from her to the sandwich and repeats the motion.

“If you want, I guess…” he grumbles. “But there's not much to know.”

He channels Sheriff Tate's spirit and drags the baggie the rest of the way over. The offer’s already been made, so he might as well try it. The sandwich itself is an Italian-style layered with prosciutto, thinly sliced pears, crumbled blue cheese, and some green leaves. Christopher’s never had anything like it before. The flavors are foreign and new, bursting on his tongue like bright spots of color. He finishes it in under three minutes and says it's just okay as he licks his fingers. Mariana eats her own to hide her smile.

Chapter Text

Mariana is persistent to a degree that escapes Christopher's understanding. She somehow manages to leave the school at the exact time he is everyday and is the first to offer herself up as Christopher’s partner during group projects—a guaranteed win, seeing as she has no competition. She runs her mouth so frequently around him that he's certain her tongue will burn off, maybe while she's in the middle of asking him what his social security number is. He now understands how Sheriff Tate must've felt when he interrogated her at the park and takes a strange satisfaction in knowing he's endured it far longer than she did.

Christopher soon starts to think of himself as an apple and Mariana as the worm burrowing towards his core. He seems to be an appendix of knowledge to her—dull, banal knowledge that pales in comparison to the interestingness of everyone else in town, but knowledge nonetheless. As soon as he gets an answer out, she's firing another question at him, like a machine hardwired to a singular task, and the more she pries, the less she blusters. Machines don't have time to be shy, he supposes.

“Do you like cookies or cupcakes more?” she whispers to him during study hall. He furiously scribbles an answer in his notebook after she pokes him with her pencil eraser, not wanting to get in trouble for violating the strict no-talking rule. He nudges it at her.

Neither, the paper reads.

That's okay, she writes back, I’ll think of something.

At the end, she draws a smiley face.

Chapter Text

Mariana accompanies him to the library after school. He tries shooing her away as nicely as possible but to no avail.

“I’ll be there late,” he says.

“I’ll keep you company,” she replies.

“I’m bad company.”

“I’ll be worse, so it’s okay.”

She follows him in and waves at the librarian, Mrs. Chapman: a doddery, wrinkled old prune of a woman. He figured she was likely a couple of centuries older than the oldest volume.

Mrs. Chapman ignores Christopher but smiles at Mariana. He marches to the very back of the building and slings his backpack onto a chair at his favorite table, a circular expanse that’s big enough for two people alone. It’s also tucked behind a volley of shelves—keeping him hidden from prying eyes—and the closest to the microfilm station.

“What’re we here for?” Mariana asks as Christopher rips his Social Studies notebook from his bag.

“Missing person cases,” he says.

Mariana is quiet after that. She listens intently as he shows her the innards of his notebook—the names of the dead and gone he has immortalized in its pages. Marie Delacroix, a college dropout who was only 22 when she disappeared in 1964. She was last seen leaving a bar with a man who was never identified. David Kowalski, a 35-year-old teacher who was fired after accusations of inappropriate behavior with students. The allegations were never proven and no charges were pressed before his death. Cynthia Lawton, last seen at a gas station, was a 28-year-old divorced waitress and mother of two in 1979. Her kids stayed up for her, but she didn’t make it back to them.

Delacroix’s desecrated body was found in the woods outside Clayton. Kowalski’s car was found abandoned off the highway in a wooded area near Farmington. Lawton’s prone corpse was found in a drainage ditch by hunters in a forest around Jefferson City.

“They were all near or in the woods…” Mariana says. She wraps her arms around herself. “It could be a coincidence.”

“Yeah,” Christopher agrees. “It could be.” But he won’t take the chance that it isn’t.

Mariana spends the next half-hour searching for more cases as Christopher reviews the ones he already has noted. He cross-checks names and studies the people who'd investigated—the police officers and coroners. He searches for other connections between the victims, but they’re all so different. They are not tied by race or gender; lifestyle or religion. They’re average people who lived average lives, and are bound in death solely because of the Missouri wild and the earth that tried to eat their bones. The ground has kept the same shade of hunger these thousands of years.

Mariana has written down the name of one other case by the end of their visit, that of 41-year-old Brian Harper in 1986. Harper had been found dead in a hunting cabin a couple miles from Potosi, ruled a potential suicide. Nothing new is gleaned besides her discovery. Christopher—hunched over his half-crazed musings, spine bent like prayer—wrangles with the voice in his head. He knows it speaks the truth when it whispers that he's running out of time.

Chapter Text

Mariana presents him with another container after school. This one is round with a see-through lid, unlike its two predecessors, and inside is a cake with a cross outlined in powdered sugar. She calls it a Tarta de Santiago.

“My mom helped with it,” Mariana says.

“I still have to give you your last container,” Christopher replies.

“You can when we get to your house.”

Christopher doesn't object. She carries the container for him again, sounding more at ease this time as she makes one-sided conversation. He learns about her family—a mom, a dad, a sister, and a tabby cat—and her dream of owning a café flower-and-book-shop themed around the color pink, with a little side-building for dancing and a boutique in the back.

“I originally wanted to be a ballerina, but my parents didn't like that so I came up with this. They still don't like it, but they think it’ll make more money. Sofia, though—she says it's cool to be a female entrepreneur. That's what she told me before she kicked me out of her room yesterday. Did you know I used to take dance classes?”

“I didn't know they offered any around here.”

“Oh, no, not here. I spent a summer with my grandparents in this little town near Barcelona and they have dance classes everywhere. It's really nice. You should visit someday.”

“Your grandparents?”

“Yeah. Wait, no—I mean the town. Or the city. I could show you around.” But she wouldn't mind if he visited her grandparents’ place, too. They could pick figs and oranges from her grandpa's garden and lay on the cool tile floors of his stone house during hot afternoons; swim in the river to the east—where the water runs cool and languid—and sit in the hammock her grandma keeps strung between two tall olive trees. Perhaps even together, arms bartering in warmth as they watch moonlight leap across the valley below. It's a dangerous thought.

Travis offers to drive her home once they reach the farm, just as he did last week. Christopher abandons them to put the cake in the house and start on his chores. He's in the middle of sweeping the feed shed when Travis returns, whistling and twirling his truck keys. He stands out of the way for a bit, pretending to look elsewhere. Christopher tries to ignore him.

“So, Christopher…” he starts. “She a friend of your's?”

“No,” Christopher says with all the feckless adamancy of a 12-year-old boy.

“Why’re you hanging around her, then?”

“I'm not hanging around her. She's hanging around me.”

“Sure seemed to be having a good time together. Almost thought I saw a smile on your face for a minute there.”

“I wasn't smiling,” Christopher says heatedly, uncertain why he's being so adamant. The back of his throat tickles from something that burns like tears but tastes like betrayal. “She's just someone from school who keeps following me around.”

Travis throws his hands up. “Alright, alright, I get it. Persistent little thing, though, ain't she? Gotta admire her for it.”

Christopher stays stubbornly silent.

“Maybe you should let her be your friend. Give her a chance.” He scratches his blonde beard. “Might be good for you.”

“I don't want another friend. I already have one.”

Travis has nothing to say to that. He leaves, boots thudding mutedly on the floor. Christopher waits till he's gone to lean his head against his broom. He wishes he were strong enough to snap it in two, or rip all the trees from the woods until the land is naked and honest.

Chapter Text

Mariana tells him over his tray of goulash and her sparkly pink lunchbox that her parents want to invite his family over for Thanksgiving dinner. She repeats multiple times that they shouldn't feel pressured, but the offer is there and the door is open. She scribbles their number and address on a napkin.

Christopher tells his mom as soon as he's worked up the courage to disturb her, who in turn tells his dad when he comes home at midnight. Rodney throws his cap on the floor and kicks his feet up on the coffee table he built for Sally 20 years ago. He smells of Jim Beam and his words slur, like he's dragging them through the same dirt caked on his boots. A king on his pleather throne.

“This is a pity invite,” he announces. “You know what that means, Chris?”

“No,” Christopher answers quietly.

“What was that?”

“No,” he says again, louder. He's standing by the stairs in his flannel pajama pants and hand-me-down He-Man shirt, arms stiff at his sides.

“It means they feel sorry for us, Christopher. They feel bad, ‘cause your brother fucked off to who knows where and his parents couldn't stop him. That's what it means.”

“Rodney,” Sally murmurs. “Not tonight.”

His dad throws his arms in the air. “I'm just stating the obvious, Sal. Let's not pretend this is anything more than that.”

Christopher longs to run upstairs and hide in his room. The only thing that stops him is the thought of his dad's anger. It comes in whips and flashes now, and the one thing he loathes more than being on the receiving end is being its cause.

Sally clenches the ends of her shirt sleeves in her balled fists. Blue veins pop through the thin veneer of her skin.

“…I think we should go,” she says.

Rodney is the only one who laughs. It takes him a minute to realize she isn't joking.

“Seriously?” he asks. “Sal, are you crazy? We barely even know these people.”

“They sent us a cake.”

“Sending a damn cake is not the same as sitting down and talking and getting to know someone— ”

“That's what we would probably do, Rodney. Sit and talk and get to know one another.”

“That’s what they want you to think.”

“You’re a conspiracy theorist…”

“Jesus Christ, Sally, this isn't a conspiracy. It's just the fucking truth. This is a— ”

“I want to be somewhere else,” Sally interrupts, sounding separate from her body. “Even if it's just for an hour, or—or—I don't know. I feel like… like this house is suffocating me.”

Rodney scoffs. “What about you, Christopher? Huh?”

Christopher looks anywhere but his dad.

“I don't see the harm…”

The expression that crosses Rodney's face is so terrible that Christopher almost changes his mind from the guilt. His dad steals his chance, sloughing off the couch and into the kitchen, ire trickling in from the archway.

“You two go do that, then. I won’t stop you.”

Sally grips the armrest of the recliner. “You're not coming?”

“I won't be the jester at their tea party, Sally. No fuckin’ way. I'm gonna spend my time wisely and look for Jonah.”

His mom's chin wobbles as much as her voice. “You mean before or after your hangover?”

“The hell did you say to me?”

Christopher races up the stairs and resolves to call Mariana in the morning, when he won’t have to wade through his parent's fury to reach the phone—only wallow in its aftertaste.

Chapter Text

Christopher and Sally stand side-by-side in the bathroom, the former buttoning the collar of his crisp white shirt and the latter pressing ice cubes to the puffy skin around her eyes, hiding the rest under layers of concealer and foundation. He lets her comb his hair and doesn't ask if she was crying last night. Sally takes both his shoulders and leans down, pressing her cheek to the top of his head. She smiles wanely, lips coffee bean brown. Christopher smiles back at their reflection.

They park their station wagon against the curb of the Álvarez house, a modest two-story on the outskirts of town with white clapboard siding and blue trim around the windows and doors. There's a deep front porch and a swing to one side, the shriveled corpses of geraniums and marigolds spilling out of terracotta flower pots. Sally stays in the driver's seat for some time, breathing in deeply and out slowly.

“Ready?” she asks.

Christopher nods.

The door opens as soon as they knock. Mariana beams, taking the store-bought pie from Christopher’s clutches and ushering them inside.

“You can leave your shoes by the door!” she chirps. “I'll take your coats!”

Her hair’s been curled and clipped back with a bow—brown to match the cartoon turkey and ruffles stitched to her dress—and her lips shimmer.

“Mariana?” a woman shouts from what Christopher assumes to be the kitchen. “Is that them?”

“Yeah!”

The warm, buttery scent of Thanksgiving fair—turkey, stuffing, gravy—fills his nose invitingly, igniting a forgotten hunger he hasn't felt in weeks. Christopher's stomach growls and he flushes with embarrassment. Linda Álvarez materializes in the entrance to the kitchen as if summoned by the sound, dark curls framing a smile just as exuberant as her daughter’s. She's a relatively short, round woman, with a vitality in her that’s been lost to Sally.

“You must be Christopher,” Mrs. Álvarez says. She flashes rows of pearly teeth at each of them. “And you're Mrs. Henris?”

His mom echoes her smile from that morning.

“Call me Sally,” she replies, and offers her hand.

Chapter Text

Christopher sits between his mother and Mariana on the left side of a table that seems too long and ornate for the little house it occupies. Emilio Álvarez—a tall, dour man with a hairy upper lip and biceps the size of canons—leads a prayer thanking God for good food and the company of good people. Laid out before them is a careful arrangement of turkey in a citrus and garlic marinade; sweet potatoes with marshmallows and roasted brussel sprouts with jamón; plates of polvorones and Pan con Tomate. It takes all of Christopher's faltering self-control not to shovel something (or everything) in his face.

At last the prayer ends and the feasting begins. He takes a bit from each dish and helps himself to an extra slice (or two, or three) of cornbread. Christopher is so focused on his food that he doesn't notice the glances Mariana steals at him, or the flicker of guilt in Sally's face when Mrs. Álvarez laughs, commenting on how he's a growing boy and that her brothers are just as voracious at mealtime.

“Your husband couldn't come?” Mrs. Álvarez asks good-naturedly, spooning sweet potatoes onto her plate.

“No, unfortunately,” Sally says, hiccuping a nervous chuckle. “He's…”

“Sick,” Christopher lies, swallowing a mouthful of turkey and mashed potatoes. “Influenza.”

“Oh!” Mrs. Álvarez looks at him slightly stricken.

“We don't have it,” he goes on. “Mom and I got vaccinated. Dad doesn't believe in that. He quarantined himself in his room.”

Sally nods.

“I’ll bet he believes in it now,” Mr. Álvarez says. Christopher wouldn't have been able to tell he was joking had he not chuckled afterwards, a deep rumble from the depths of his chest.

“So!” Sally says, redirecting the conversation. “How long has your family been in Coldwater?”

Adult chatter dances along the cusp of Christopher’s awareness. He toys with the idea of sitting back and taking a minute to rest his digestive system, but the allure of the polvorones is too immense to ignore. Mariana gently prods his ankle with the toe of her Mary Jane’s as he reaches for a third, the touch gone in an instant. Her ears are red when he looks at her.

“Do you like those?” she asks.

“Uh-huh,” Christopher says, and stuffs one in his mouth. Hesitantly, he adds: “I like the almonds.”

Mariana smiles. “Good. I made them all by myself this time—no help from my mom or anything.”

Sofia, sitting next to Mrs. Álvarez on the other side of the table, snorts and pokes at her untouched food.

“Oh my God, Mari,” she says with a devilish grin. “You're so obvious.”

The color in Mariana's ears spreads to her neck.

“Stop it, Sofi,” she rejoins, loud enough that it captures their parents’ attention.

“Is something wrong?” Mr. Álvarez asks.

“No,” Sofia responds pleasantly. “I just think I figured out why Mari wanted to make the polvorones so bad. It's ‘cause she has a cru— ”

Mariana clenches her fists. “I do not!”

“Lying’s a sin, you know.” She takes on a sing-song voice. “Chrissy and Mari sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n— ”

“Sofia, enough” Mrs. Álvarez says sharply. “That is entirely inappropriate. I'm sorry, Christopher.”

Christopher shrugs. “It's okay.”

Sofia rolls her eyes. “I was joking, Mom. God.”

“Don't roll your eyes at your mother,” Mr. Álvarez says. Christopher imagines how frightening he would be if it wasn't his daughter he was reprimanding.

Mariana, now as red as a turkey feather, is unsatisfied. She crosses her arms and glares at her sister accusingly.

“I’ll tell them about your boyfriend,” she threatens.

Mr. Álvarez lowers his fork as Sofia scowls. “What boyfriend?”

“I saw those lilies in your room,” Mariana says. “The one from your secret admirer.”

“In case you didn't notice, Mari,” Sofia snaps. “A secret admirer is not the same as a boyfriend.”

“What lilies, Sofia?” Mrs. Álvarez questions. “What’s your sister talking about?”

“They're nothing, okay?” Sofia stabs her turkey. “Someone just left some stupid flowers in my locker. I don't even know who it was.”

“I hope it's Raymond,” Mariana says sweetly.

Sofia wrinkles her nose. “Ew, no. He's a freak who doesn't wash his hair.”

“Sofia…” Mrs. Álvarez sighs.

“I think you two would be cute together.”

“I’d prefer if it was him,” Mr. Álvarez says. “Honest boy. Good work ethic. Christian, too.”

“Mm. He’s a good kid,” Sally contributes.

Christopher knows what she's thinking of—how Raymond O’Donoghue, Mathew Cook, and Tanner Schmidt are the three seniors who've searched for Jonah the longest, braving the cold November evenings to find their classmate. His hunger ebbs away. He sets his silverware down quietly.

Mr. Álvarez nods. “I ran into him and Mrs. O’Donoghue while on the way to the lodge not too long ago. He could hold a conversation pretty well. Had lots of interesting thoughts about Iraq.”

Christopher stills.

“The Meridian Lodge, Mr. Álvarez?” he asks.

Mr. Álvarez casts his gaze onto Christopher. It's a heavy, penetrating weight. His eyes are so dark they reflect no light.

“Yes. You ever hunted there before?”

Christopher shakes his head no, unable to do much more than that. A memory bobs to the surface, cemented in his mind from the night Will was found. His dad had leaned over the sink, holding the edge like he would crumble if he let go.

It was by that damn lodge, Sally, he'd said. Something's not right about this. Something's not right.

“Do you?” Christopher inquires, hoping he’s affecting a tone of innocent curiosity.

“No, not really. Only business I have that way is the occasional contract work for Mr. Thatcher.”

Mrs. Álvarez nods in agreement.

“What kind?”

“Whatever he needs doing.”

“So… Anything?”

“Hit the nail on the head. Renovations and maintenance work, for the most part. How old are you?”

“Twelve.”

“I’m surprised you didn't say you were thirteen,” Sally says fondly, reaching over to rub Christopher’s back. “He likes to pretend he's a year older than he actually is.”

“I used to do that, too. Ever think about getting a job in a couple years?”

“Sometimes,” Christopher mumbles.

“A word of advice from one working man to another: don't question the hand that feeds you.”

He, his wife, and Sally break into a series of chuckles. Christopher can't understand what there is to laugh at.

“What was the last thing you did for him?” he blurts.

Mr. Álvarez smiles thinly. “That's between me and Mr. Thatcher.”

“Why?”

Sally scolds him gently. “Enough now, Christopher.”

Mr. Álvarez waves a hand and takes a sip from his glass of water. “S’alright. Guess he doesn't know what an NDA is yet.”

“But— ”

His mom grips his shoulder tightly—a warning. Christopher clamps his mouth shut and holds it like that with his remaining restraint.

“Why don't you and Mariana play upstairs?” Mrs. Álvarez recommends, oblivious to the tension blanketing him and Sally. “If you're done eating, of course. I think Mari had something she wanted to show you.”

Mariana brightens. She's been listening to them talk with mild disinterest.

“Oh, yeah! C’mon, follow me!”

She flies from her chair and tugs Christopher up by his sleeve, leading him out of the dining room, past a living room with lots of figurine angels and a floral-printed couch. Her hand slips into his as they ascend a short flight of carpeted stairs, and all he can think of is Mr. Álvarez. Christopher does, in fact, know what an NDA is, and that someone of Mr. Álvarez’s size could probably pick him up with a single hand and carry him off with ease, like a dragon with a princess in its talons, or hawk swooping down for a rabbit, or an 18-year-old boy who went to dinner at a friend's house one night and never came home.

“Christopher? Are you okay?”

Mariana is looking at him, pouting in concern. They're in her room—though he has no recollection of how they arrived there—and his heart is pounding drum-like in his ribs, forcing sweat to his palms. He swallows thickly and nods.

Mariana bounces over to a small desk covered in glitter gel pens and parchment paper in every color of the rainbow. It's a seamless set piece in the rosy extravagance of the space, lined as it is with Lisa Frank stickers and New Kids on the Block posters. Her bed is a miniature cloud of lace and ribbon. On her dresser is a line of nail polish and a music box with a spinning ballerina, caught on her tip-toes forever. She gingerly lifts a folded square of fabric resting on the lower-left corner and presents it to him.

It's a hand-knitted scarf, some of the patterns uneven but soft to the touch. The yarn is cornflower blue, woven in a garter stitch.

“I made this for you,” Mariana says, shy once more. “Like the polvorones. And all the other stuff.”

Christopher plays with the tassels on one end and runs his palm along one side. It tickles him pleasantly, easing his heartbeat.

“Thank you,” he says.

“You like it?”

Christopher manages a smile. “I do,” he tells her, and she smiles back.

Chapter Text

He listens for the rhythm of the shower water to flow mutedly through the bathroom door. Once he hears it, Christopher takes the dusty phone book from the lone shelf in the living room and flips to the pages with the O’s. He drags his finger down each row, stopping once he reaches O’Donoghue.

(573) 248-9176. He dials the number on the landline. Three rings till someone picks up.

“Hello?”

Christopher recognizes Raymond's voice. Soft and slow, like Jonah's.

“Raymond O’Donoghue?”

A pause. “Who is this?”

“Christopher Henris, Jonah's brother.”

“Christopher,” he repeats, as if tasting his name. “I see. How are you?”

“Fine. I have some questions for you, if you don't mind.”

“I don't.”

“You know Mr. Álvarez?”

“Emilio Álvarez? Yeah.”

“Do you talk to him often?”

“Not really. I wave whenever I see him in town. I've only spoken to him a couple times.”

“When was the last?”

“About a month ago, if I were to guess.”

“He does contract work, right? Do you know about any recent jobs he’s taken?”

“...One, maybe. What is this for?”

“I'm doing… I’m doing a survey.”

“Survey?”

Christopher ignores the question and barrels on, squeezing the pencil in his hand. There isn't a second to waste.

“I know this is weird to ask, but do you have any idea what that job was?”

“What are you going to do with that information?”

Christopher bites his lip. The graphite of his pencil is close to snapping on his notebook paper.

“Please,” he says, and surprises himself with how tired the word is. “It's for Jonah.”

Another pause, longer.

“I ran into him at the gas station,” Raymond replies. “He was getting coffee. His car was having trouble. I think he said he was gonna stop by the Thatcher’s place and head down to the Meridian Lodge as soon as he got it working again.”

“What day was that? Do you remember?”

“Saturday, I think.” He hears shuffling on the other end—the faint flap of paper. “October 16.”

Chapter Text

The first snowfall of the month coats Coldwater in a thin layer of white. It lies pure and untouched, the country temporarily cleansed. Any warmth offered in the classrooms is tainted by a chill that has sunk past bone.

The smile Mariana makes when she sees her scarf around his neck could be made into a constellation. Christopher can't meet her eyes for the guilt of his suspicions. He tells her there's no need to walk him home; his mom drove him to school and will be picking him up. It's too cold, besides. He wouldn't want her to get sick.

At the farm, he sequesters himself in his parents room and riffles through the boxes under their bed. Sally is with the horses and Rodney is gone. Muscle memory from the days he and Jonah used to snoop in places they weren't allowed guides him to a cardboard box with two cut-out flaps in the sides, big enough for his dad’s hands. He drags it free.

Inside are facets of Rodney's life. There are birth certificates and hospital bracelets for Jonah and Christopher, report cards and dental records, old bank statements and the Bronze Star Medal he earned in Vietnam tangled with his dog tags. Buried beneath it all is an untitled folder.

Christopher spends the next ten minutes perusing the information his dad’s collected on the Meridian Lodge over the years, copying it down faster than can be read.

The Meridian Lodge was founded in 1856 by Silas Thatcher, two years before Coldwater was settled, an exclusive retreat for hunting and networking for the future town’s wealthiest families. It funded churches, schools, and town projects, and donated large sums of money to support the troops during World War I. Harold Thatcher took over in the 30s, right around the time the Coldwater Lake was dug. The 50s passed uneventfully, with Coldwater’s tourism and population the biggest it had ever been or would ever be. Ellis Thatcher became the owner in 1971, after the town began to shrink in the 60s and—subsequently—the lodge itself. Ellis’s son, Wayne, took full control after his passing in 1989. The Meridian Lodge is a quiet place now, the only regular members being those closest to Wayne.

Christopher notices a slip of paper at the bottom of the box as he's about to return the folder to its place. Curious, he takes it out to find a funeral notice for a man named Paul Whitaker, 20 years old when he died on a hunting trip at the Meridian Lodge in 1959. He was a beloved son, survived by his parents—Thomas and Margaret Whitaker—and numerous extended family who will miss him dearly.

It feels like a sentencing as Christopher notes his name and year of death. He cleans up the mess scrawled around him and shoves the box back under the bed, careful to restore the arrangement exactly as it was.

Chapter Text

He doesn't go for the Winchester Model 70 or Remington 870. They're familiar, but too hard to conceal. He skips over the Colt M1911. Its recoil will be too strong. He takes, instead, the Smith and Wesson Model 10 from the gun cabinet.

The grain of the handle is a smooth orange-brown. The metal of the barrel is cool and gray, indefinably heavy in his small, trembling hands. Christopher flips it over twice, tracing its edges, and aims at the basement wall. He puts his thumb on the hammer and loops a finger over the trigger. He’s shot a revolver only once, out in a field with his dad.

Back upstairs, he takes the sticky note with Sheriff Tate's number from the fridge and dials it on the landline. She answers immediately.

“I have a lead,” Christopher says.

“What? Christopher?”

“Yeah—Yeah, it's Christopher. I have a lead, and suspects, and— ”

“Hold on, kid, stop— ”

“Will is lying, I know he is. And I think Wayne has something to do with it, and—and there's something weird about his lodge but I don't know what yet.”

“Chris— ”

I've been looking at people who were found dead by woods all over the state and maybe it's all just a coincidence and maybe it doesn’t mean anything, but I found someone—an actual person—who died at the Meridian Lodge. His name was Paul Whitaker and— ”

“Christopher, stop,” Tate orders. She's never sounded so serious. “Just stop.”

He stops.

“What did I tell you?”

Christopher doesn't respond.

“You promised to stop searching.”

“But Paul— ”

“I know about Paul.” He listens to her breath. “I know what you think about the lodge. I know it’s hard to stop chasing but you have to. You’re too young for this.”

Too young for everything. He digs his nails into his hand. “When will I be old enough?”

“No one ever is. But I swore I'd handle it and I will. I just need a bit more time. Okay?”

“…Okay.”

“Do you mean it?”

“Yeah. I do.”

Christopher tells her goodbye and hangs up, arraying his homework in a contained mess on the coffee table. He waits for Sally to come inside, then the putter of Travis’s truck to signal his departure from the farm. He tells her he's going to see Cricket and Bandit as she's heading upstairs. Sally's smile is still weak. He slips out the door, her keys in his hands. Christopher cannot promise Tate Jonah's time.

Chapter Text

Laura cups her hands over the lower half and sighs deeply, elbows on the kitchen counter. Her palms are rough against her weathered skin. His name haunts her in her sleep and now that it's been unearthed, she doesn't know how to bury it again.

Jonah's disappearance ripped off the bandage. Christopher ripped off the scab. She reaches for the pack of cigarettes next to a bowl of overripe bananas. She isn't 17, she tells herself. She's a woman. Girls have bleeding hearts. Women don't. Her mother used to preach that they cauterized with time. When Laura got to missing him too hard, she'd grab her wrist and press hard on her pulse with her thumb. You feel that? Huh? You didn't die along with him, Laura, she hissed. So don't go acting like you did and leave me here alone. I won't take it. I won't.

The phone rings for the second time that evening. She swears and pushes out of her seat.

“Christopher, if this is about— ”

It isn't Christopher, though. It's Sally Henris, trembling up the line like a hammer on glass. Christopher is missing, she cries. So is the station wagon and his daddy's gun.

Chapter Text

Christopher pulls too sharply into a ditch along a gravel road. His hands tremble. He'd followed the foggy memories of days his dad would drive past the lodge’s grounds and throw it a middle finger, overcorrecting on half the turns and pressing so hard on the gas that he could hear Rodney's spirit shouting at him. Slow down, Chris, he’d say if he were here. Christ, I think I had an easier time when I was getting shot at. But he isn't here. Christopher is alone, at the mercy of what might as well be another planet.

The driver’s side unlatches. Christopher tumbles into the snow, his stolen Maglite and the Model 10 nearly slipping from his grasp. He leans over—hands on his knees—and tries to calm his breathing. The bullets in his backpack ping as they knock into one another. It's gotten so hard to make himself work right.

Christopher forces himself up and grips his gun tighter. There will be time to breathe once he finds his brother. Daylight is already gone.

Chapter Text

Christopher wonders, sometimes, if there is an alien with a gun trailing him. He knows, logically, that there isn't. Logic hasn't done much good so far, though. If the world were running on logic, then it makes the most logical sense that he would not be out here, trekking through the silence and the powdered ground. He would be at home, suffering in the mundanity of a Monday night and cursing the knowledge that he has four more to get through. Jonah would be there, too, dragging him out of bed and telling him it's his turn to do the dishes.

Snow crunches softly underfoot and sticks to his soles, reminding Christopher of his mom when she drags her rolling pin back and forth over spots of flour. It makes his stomach ache. He stops every few seconds to look behind him, thinking he's heard a noise—something wild and animal, or not-animal in the slightest. There's never anything, and if there is, it's good at hiding. He could also be stupid and blind and not know what the hell he's doing, and not know that he is prey, and not know that he is about to die, and not know the words to the right prayer begging God's forgiveness for being a stupid, blind boy. He could be in Illinois by now and not know it, with how the trees all look the same; how the earth exhales the same each time he crushes it; how it screams in pain, trying to get him killed. Is it closer to morning, or is it still night?

He pauses against a tree, leaning onto it with his hand—and then, he hears a sound. It isn't one conjured from his paranoia; he can tell from the weight and cadence. The imagined is not so solid. It does not repeat so frequently. It's someone's footsteps, casual and languid, as if they are taking a stroll through a park.

Air catches in his throat, below the Adam’s apple he isn’t grown enough to have. The footsteps stop. They exist in a bristly approximation of space, he and a shadow suspended below a canopy of emaciated limbs.

Christopher runs. The shadow runs after him.

Chapter Text

The terror he feels is unequivocal. It cannot be surmised in a word or compared to old fears. This is not the same as getting lost at the store, or sweaty palms before a class presentation. Those instances were abstracts.

He tastes it on his tongue. It is acid in his teeth. His legs burn. A scream wells in his chest—suffocating—but he fears what will happen if he lets it go. Christopher fumbles with his revolver, and he can't hold his Maglite steady enough to carve out a path.

His foot catches on a root and he stumbles, cheek scraping the rough ground. His Maglite bounces out of reach.

He doesn't have a gun, Christopher thinks as he rolls on his back and kicks away with his feet, aiming the Model 10 at something he cannot see—alien, animal, or man. He doesn't have a gun or else he would've shot me. Please, God, don't let him have a gun.

He draws back the hammer with shaking hands and pulls the trigger. Again, and again, and again. Three shots fire into the night and melt into the autumn-winter.

Two miss their mark. The last doesn't. Christopher hears the pierce of cloth and epidermis.

“Shit,” the shadow says, and it's a male full of pain. He is a mass in the dark. His footsteps falter, unable to carry him further. Christopher takes up his Maglite and runs till the tears have frozen in his lashes.

Chapter Text

Time is infinite and indefinite. The silence comes crashing back as he collapses next to another tree. A frozen stream separates him from the rest of the woodland, crooked and smooth as ice. Christopher’s lungs are strangling him. He takes the bullets from his backpack and tries to reload the revolver, but the bullets slip through his fingers and plunge into the snow. He scrambles to pick them up, biting his tongue to keep himself from crying. Christopher wipes furtively at the wetness in his eyes.

“In my distress I called upon the Lord,” he whispers, quaking. “And cried unto my God…”

He plucks the bullets out of the pale veil, one by one.

“He heard my voice out of His temple…”

He flounders for the release latch and pushes it with his fingers, slapping the ejector rod. The spent cases stuck inside must be pried out with his numb hands.

“And my cry came before Him…”

He slides the bullets in, one by one. Though he moves as quickly as he can, he is still arduously slow.

“Even into His ears...”

Christopher glances up, and he sees the red in the stream.

Chapter Text

He fell off the monkey bars in the fourth grade and thought for a moment that he was dying. Nose snapped, collarbone cracked, blood colored the rocks. The sun was a gate and the angel opened it for him as the discomfort became pain, and he ate the discomfort so he could show it to God.

He scraped his knee in the first grade and thought for a moment that he was dying. His dad made him sit on the sink as he doused the wound with a damp cloth. His brother put a Band-Aid over top and his mom kissed it better and the gates closed. The angel went away.

He follows the red in the water, now, chasing the gate, watching for its pearl-sheen and listening for the whisper of a shadow who heralds faceless death. His heart exists outside his body. October cries at his heels. He braces trees to keep himself from toppling. Jonah, he thinks.

He enters the woods in the seventh grade and thinks for a long, long moment that he is dying. The angel does not come for him, though—not the way it comes for the girl he finds in the arms of Will Thatcher, one foot in the stream and her blood from her gaping abdomen painting him the furthest thing from a saint.

Chapter Text

At 10:36 P.M., at the very dredges of the year, Christopher Henris, Will Thatcher, and the body of Luanne Calloway are found in the woods surrounding the Meridian Lodge. Laura had been tracking the sound of the gunshots when she saw Christopher between two oaks that eclipsed him almost entirely, his Smith and Wesson Model 10 aimed directly at Will. Will was crouched on the other side of the stream dividing them, his arms up in surrender. Luanne had been watching the sky from his lap. It was the last one she would ever see.

Will had been arrested and Christopher brought in for questioning. She pieced together a story from the aborted snippets he managed to force out. He’d had suspicions and evidence, ones he said he couldn't wait any longer to act on. He knew how to drive a little and the lay of the land—at least where the roads crossed into gravel and bled to woods. Someone chased him and he shot blindly, losing the figure in the dark. He saw the blood in the stream and thought it might lead him to Jonah, but it brought him instead to the start, where everything began and ended. To Will.

She sits across from Will at a table in an isolated room that hasn't been used in over a year. There's a speck of blood below his left eye and trying not to stare at it is like trying to climb out of hell. Laura sees not a hint of remorse in his face, but neither does she see satisfaction or fear at being caught. She looks him straight on and sees nothing.

“Did you do something to Luanne Calloway in those woods, Will?” she asks.

“Would you believe me if I said I didn't?”

“No.”

“Then I won't lie.”

Laura lets the answer settle between them. The hum of the station—muffled voices beyond the door, the ring of a phone—fills the space where his denial should be. She watches him, waiting for something—anything—to reveal itself in his expression. But Will remains as he is.

She exhales, shifting slightly in her chair. “Tell me what happened.”

Will turns his head to the side and looks at the wall, obscuring the spot of red on his cheek. He shuts his eyes for a brief moment, as if recalling a distant memory rather than the events of the last several hours.

“I went back for her,” he says. “That's all.”

Laura waits, leaning with one arm on the tabletop. “Back where? The lodge?”

Will nods.

“To do what?”

“To see if there was anything left.”

His words are maddeningly vague, and she knows he's doing it on purpose. Laura lowers her voice.

“The lodge is where we found Luanne’s body, Will. That's where we found you both. Why was she there?”

His gaze flickers to the mirrored glances, then lands on Laura. “Because I put her there.”

Laura clenches her jaw, schooling herself. “You’re confessing?”

“I thought I already had.”

There's something about how twisted his answers are that sets her on edge. He hasn't asked for a lawyer, hasn't protested, hasn't tried to justify his actions. He's placing his neck on the wood and daring her to bring the ax down. It makes her gut twist.

“Why?” she wonders.

Will considers Laura for a moment, stretching her time thin. “She wouldn't stop screaming.”

It's warm in the room, but she feels a chill and it does not dissipate.

“Enough of the cryptic shit. I'm here for answers and you're here to give them to me. Did you kill her or not?”

“I did.”

“And Jonah?”

Will does not move. His face doesn't change in the slightest.

“No more lies, Will,” she pushes. “What happened to Jonah Henris?”

His mouth twitches—not quite a smile, not quite the ghost of one.

“I killed him, too.”

Chapter Text

Luanne Calloway went missing 44 days after Jonah Henris. She hadn’t had a father since she was three and her mother smoked pot. They lived a town over from Coldwater in Lyons. A light could always be seen through one of the windows of their green trailer house, as if it didn't quite sleep. Luanne liked spaghetti-strap tank tops and had long golden hair all the friends she didn't have envied. She smelled like Revlon’s Ciara and wore stolen lip gloss from the drug store.

When her daughter didn't come out for breakfast Thursday night, Mrs. Calloway assumed she'd finally run away. She did not call the police. She went about her day as usual.

Luanne was 17 years old. The coroner, Dr. Kieran L. Mathers, determined she’d died the night her body was found, between 9:45 P.M. and 10:15 P.M. A large contusion—4.2 cm in diameter—and an underlying cranial fracture was likely caused by hard impact against a rock or the ground. Deep bruising and other minor fractures marred her right cheekbone and lower jaw, indicating multiple punches or blunt impacts. The fourth and sixth ribs on her left side had hairline fractures from sustained blows.

There were limited defensive attempts before incapacitation, after which she was stabbed 17 times in the lower abdomen and uterus. The depth ranged from 2 cm and 10 cm, suggesting a single-edged knife approximately 12 to 15 cm long was used. Some showed a downward trajectory, while others were more horizontal.

In the upper abdomen were three of the stab wounds. Two pierced the stomach lining but did not cause immediate fatal damage. In the lower were six; three punctured the intestines and one nicked the abdominal aorta, significantly contributing to major blood loss. On the left side were four applied with less force, delivered after she was already dying. In the uterus there were also four—a deliberate targeting of the reproductive organs. One fully penetrated, leading to massive internal hemorrhaging. Mathers found fetal tissue that did not have the chance to become a fetus, nor the baby she had planned to keep.

The cause of death was exsanguination from the abdominal aorta injury. The shock of the stabbing accelerated circulatory collapse. She lost consciousness within 30 to 60 seconds and died shortly after.

Will told Laura that he had planned to do the same to Luanne as he had to Jonah after he’d shot him twice in the head with the Colt M1911 police will later find in his top dresser-drawer. He would have made a firepit of dry branches and logs and dragged her body into the flames, burning it just long enough to destroy soft tissue, hair, fingerprints, and facial structure. He would have gathered and crushed her charred bones, then weighed the remains with rocks from the lakeshore. He would have sunk her next to Jonah in the middle of the vast waters, where he’d laid him to rest.

Chapter Text

The woods and lake are cordoned off with yellow ribbon and grief. Rumors spark as county officers set out on boats with grappling hooks and weighted nets to drag the lakebed, their bodies wide and blanched against the artificial water. Visibility is low. They bring in cadaver dogs to trawl the sand and area Will claimed to have burned the body: a secluded clearing deep within the Meridian Lodge’s woods—20 yards in diameter and situated 3.5 miles from the eastern shore of Coldwater Lake—where the trees grow thickest and undergrowth is dense enough to shelter it from the rest of the world. Forensic teams sift around the stones and fire pit nestled in the center, torpid and charred. They search for bone fragments, teeth, tissue—anything that points to a verdict.

In the following three days, they unearth nothing of import but the curiosity of the folks who inch past like molasses in their cars and linger just beyond the breadth of the crime, whispering amongst themselves. Christopher comes early on the morning of the second day at his father’s side, eyes bright with accusation as he stands thigh-pressed to the tape. He refuses to leave until Laura drags him off kicking and screaming, calling her every foul word—a cunt, a bitch, a motherfucker who should go to hell. Laura doesn't reprimand or threaten him, but she grabs his wrists when he tries to hit her and lets him cry into her shoulder when he gives in to the exhaustion of fighting. Rodney is there most hours of day, swearing it’s all shit—that his boy’s not dead and they should be pressing Will for the truth. Laura has every day since his arrest, locking him and herself in that white room as if they were bound to it in chains. She nags him about an accomplice, thinking of the man Christopher had described as a shadow. She pushes for an alternative—a cover-up. His story is always the same.

He wanted to run away together. I agreed. I took him out to the woods where we liked to play when we were younger. Said we should see it one last time. I told him to turn around. I held up the gun and I shot him twice. I acted alone.

When she asks why, it’s always the same.

I wanted to know how it felt.

She interrogates his family, too. Grace's cutting responses are tempered by the fear and confusion in her blown-out pupils, the surrounding blue a perfect replica of her brother's.

Edith insists through a deluge of tears on her son's innocence—whatever happened to Jonah was not Will’s doing. They were best friends—more than that, even. She references 1 Samuel 1:18, David and Jonathan, and the knitting of two souls. She talks about how whatever God made Will’s soul out of, he'd made Jonah's of the same. This town is looking for someone to blame and her child is the easiest.

Wayne is the most composed of the trio, but there's something like anger in how he fidgets—disbelief in the stringing of his sentences.  His interrogation is stilted. Laura doesn't yet know what to make of him.

Sally comes only once to watch the investigators at work, looking half the size of a woman in spite of her puffy winter coat. Her red hair is dull and unwashed. Her cheeks are sunken, like a corpse given up on salvation. The rest of her has sunk with what may now lay immolated, buried where it never should have touched.

Chapter Text

Luanna and Jonah are nowhere and everywhere—on the tongues of people passing judgement, spilling pitifully from the lips of the reverend, and orbiting every news station on air. An article is published in the town paper about them, in which the two are monikered “beloved local teens,” taken cruelly and unjustly. There's a was and were in every line, past-tense come to wipe clean the chances that still hold fast. A quote from Mrs. Calloway reveals she's still in shock. You don't know the weight of something till it's outta your arms , she says.

There's no word from Rodney or Sally; they turn down every reporter who calls or comes to the door. The rest of what's written is about Will.

Sally slides it wordlessly to her husband across the kitchen table. Rodney reads the first few paragraphs before scraping back in his chair, crumpling the paper in his hands, and tossing it in the trash. Christopher watches from his seat, trying to keep his head from slipping off his shoulders. Sobs ricocheted off the walls last night, waking him from the first shiver of sleep that’d touched him in days. 

I had your baby , he heard his mom gasp through the plaster. I had your baby and I lost him .

It wasn't a bad thing, in a way, even if it terrified him to listen to her—he would rather be awake than see the dying girl in his dreams, or the bullet holes in his brother's head, or the shadow that haunts him. He's tried everything to scrub the tang of blood from his nostrils and the dark from his skin.

“Don't believe them,” Rodney tells the only kid he has left. “Don’t believe whatever shit that Thatcher fucker comes up with. Jonah’s out there, Chris. He's out there and he's waiting for us.”

Chapter Text

1,478 candles set fire to the dusk. Half the combined populations of Jonah and Luanne's hometowns gather at Coldwater's football field for a vigil in their honor. A makeshift memorial is set up at the entrance with framed photos of the deceased: Luanne in her school picture from last year and Jonah's the same as his missing person posters. They're propped within a sea of orchids and carnations; irises and lilies; handwritten notes and ribbons. Attendees leave necklaces for Luanne and guitar picks for Jonah. Christopher sets a charm bracelet atop Luanne's pile of jewelry, arranging it so all the silver bangles twinkle beneath the stadium lights. He'd thought of bringing a rose for his brother—roses are Sally's favorite flower, and because of that, Jonah had made them his favorite as well—but he doesn't, in the end, and hides far from the crowds and camera crews, hunkered in the shade of the stands. He pulls his hood over his head and observes the small stage at the 50-yard line. Sally won't leave the house and Rodney dropped him off, but wouldn't go in.

“I'm not lighting their funeral pyre,” he grumbled as Christopher got out of the truck. “I'll drive around for a bit. You stand outside the entrance when you're ready to leave. Don't go anywhere else. Stay right where you are, or I swear to God I'll—” He exhaled the remnants of his anger from December 2nd. Rodney had been so mad at Christopher he could hardly look at him. “You hear me, Christopher?”

Christopher nodded. He did not linger on how deep the lines in Rodney’s face had become.

Speakers come and go—teachers and friends he can't bother to remember the names of—gathered in perfect sympathy. Mascara-tainted tears stream down Mariassa’s face as she apologizes to the community on Will’s behalf. She had no idea the things she was capable of. Jonah was his friend, but he was hers, too. She doesn't mention how she used to talk behind Jonah's back, or the way she ignored him when ambushing Will between classes. Christopher knows because Jonah used to tell him about it, rolling his eyes as he did. He had never been a part of her bubble, even when they were too young to make up the boundaries. In her eyes, Jonah would forever be Will’s stray. She thinks of him now not as he was, but as the accessory to her ex-boyfriend's crime—a blip in the murderer’s story—relevant only so long as the world has its eyes on the one who claims to have taken his life.

Listening to her raises a feeling of nausea through the nothingness, and they haven't even gotten to the moment of silence. Christopher looks at those around him, a familiar tightening in his lungs. He sees drawn-faced women with tattoos and men in baseball caps shaking their heads and children pawing the dirt in boredom. Some of them he recognizes but a lot he doesn't, and—before he spots the black ribbon of Mariana Álvarez’s hair and her swollen, red-rimmed eyes—it occurs to him that he is lost in a brine of strangers.

Mariana steps away from her family, towards Christopher. Christopher turns and walks the other way.

He retraces his steps to the entrance of the football field, elbow scraping the chainlink fence and wedging himself past copses of people. Someone grabs his shoulder as he's nearing the concession stands, and Christopher flinches so hard he startles the woman nearest to him, her candle flickering wildly.

“Woah, easy there,” a man says, releasing Christopher from his hold. “Didn't mean to scare you.”

It isn't the shadow. It's a thin, wiry individual with sallow skin and a stoop in his spine. His hair and eyes—downturned behind a pair of rectangular glasses—are a mellow, indistinct brown, as unassuming as the unlit candle cradled in his hand. He notices Christopher glancing at it and chuckles without humor.

“Felt a bit too much like giving up when I lit it,” he explains. “Had to put the thing out.”

Christopher swallows thickly, heart pounding. “Who are you?” he asks, taking a step back. He sees the dark everywhere—even now under the bright beams of the stadium.

The man blinks, somewhat in surprise.

“My name is Richard Cotton,” he offers. “I’m the high school music teacher.”

“…Oh.”

Christopher remembers him now. He occasionally passes him by at school, and Jonah used to talk about the guitar lessons he had with him in tenth grade. He'd been his favorite teacher.

“Sorry,” Christopher mumbles, relaxing.

“No worries,” Mr. Cotton says. “I shouldn't have snuck up on you like that. You're Christopher, right? Jonah’s little brother?”

“Yeah.”

Mr. Cotton smiles. It doesn't reach his eyes. “I was hoping I'd run into you. Are your parents around?”

“No. Just me.” Christopher swallows thickly. “How are you?” he forces.

Mr. Cotton dismisses his attempt at conversation. “Oh, no, no—none of that. I don't think either of us are ready for small talk, and honestly, I’d rather not take up any more of your time than necessary. I have a few things I was hoping to drop off with you and your folks, if that's alright. Jonah tended to leave his stuff in the music room and, well…” He shrugs. “I didn't touch ‘em for a while—just in case, you know? But I figured it's time you had them back.”

“Oh, yeah…” Christopher says, absorbing his words. “That'd be… That'd be nice.”

“Great.” Mr. Cotton glances up at the concession stands and the gravel road leading out to the street, presumably at the vehicles parked along the edges and across, jigsawed on a grassy expanse that once held a house from the 40s. “My car’s out that way.”

“Um…” Christopher shifts his feet. “I don't think… My dad doesn't want me to…”

“Oh! It's fine, it's fine.” He sounds embarrassed. “Don't worry about it. I'll just bring it over—you wait here. Or wherever you feel comfortable.”

Christopher watches Mr. Cotton jog into the distance. He shuffles over to the concession stands and leans against it on his side—arm and head pressed to the shingles—closing his eyes for just a second. Mr. Cotton is there when he opens them, holding out an overstuffed Walmart bag and a composition book that’s seen better days. Christopher immediately recognizes Jonah’s handwriting on the cover.

Property of Jonah Henris , it reads. DO NOT TOUCH!!!

“He wrote his songs in there,” Mr. Cotton says. “Lots of ‘em. Don't worry—I didn't look inside. Just helped him write a few whenever he asked.”

He takes the items gingerly, adjusting himself to their weight. Mr. Cotton smiles again, small and sad.

“Thank you,” Christopher tells him, softly and sincerely. He runs his thumb over the cover of the composition book, tracing the outline of an old, brown stain—most likely hot chocolate. Jonah had never acclimated himself to the taste of coffee.

“No need to thank me,” Mr. Cotton says. “All I've done is return it where it belongs.”

Chapter Text

He tells his parents about Mr. Cotton once they’re home. Sally shakes her head when they show it to her, unable to bring herself to look inside, so Rodney and Christopher sift through the bag themselves. There are half-finished mixtapes and a pack of guitar strings, one of them missing; a pocket-sized spiral notebook of random doodles and memos; a dried-out Sharpie and a pair of drumsticks. Jonah had been learning to play the drums since January of last year, but the guitar had always been his main instrument. Rodney lingers on the red flannel shirt they uncover at the bottom, raising it up a flag.

“Was wondering where this went,” he murmurs.

For a long time that night, Christopher lies on his bed and wars with himself over whether or not he should look inside the composition book, thinking of the clues that might lay within its weathered pages. The urge itches at him—his hand hovers over-top, but then he thinks of Jonah and suddenly can't bring himself to open it. He leaves the book in his brother's room among the clutter on his dresser, as if Jonah had put it there himself.

Chapter Text

Laura and Christopher stand together for a while under an elm—not talking—and watch as a side-scan sonar issued by the state searches for abnormalities under the surface. Sometimes she glances at Christopher and can't read anything on his face but the weariness. There's the remnants of scrape on his chin from when he tripped that dreadful night and a gauntness to him that hadn't used to be so noticeable.

She stops at the gas station for a fresh pack of Marlboro’s on her way home and sets up the Victrola from the attic in her barren wasteland of a living room, furnished solely by an ancient recliner and a Sony KV-1945R Trinitron from ‘84. Her Sam Cooke album is coated in eight layers of dust and smudged with an unidentifiable stain, but it plays just as well as it did 32 years ago. Laura leans back in the recliner and exhales as Cooke’s pleasant tenor floods the house, fighting the gravitational pull in her muscles for a cigarette. She closes her eyes, and moonlight pistons off the barrel of the swing set. His hands are two spots of heat on her back as he pushes her up and down and back again into his hold.

What's that tune you're humming? she asks, feet lifting off the ground. Oh, c’mon, Paul—you can push me higher than that.

What if I don't wanna push you higher? Paul asks, full of mirth. What if I wanna keep you close? What'd you say to that, Laura?

I'd say answer the damn question, Whitaker.

Hmmm… She can hear his smile. I think it's called You Send Me . Heard it on the radio this afternoon. It made me think of you.

Laura snorts.

It's true!

I wasn't doubting it.

An ellipses of comfortable silence, save for the creak of the swing and the rustle of fabric. Paul breaks it with an, I’ve been thinking, Laura .

I'll start praying.

I mean it. He grabs the swings chains and draws her gently to a stop, waltzing around until he's in front of her. His arms cage her on either side, and she has to crane her neck to see the seriousness etched onto his features. Laura studies it—him: smooth lines and warm skin and dark hair.

Thinking about what, Paul?

Thinking about what it would be like if we left this town.

She blinks up at him. Huh?

We could get our own place , he says. Move out to Los Angeles or—or New York City, or Sarasota, or Denver… Hell, we could even go somewhere in Texas—become ranchers. You've always wanted to ride a horse. I'd buy you the prettiest one.

…What? A dent forms in Laura's brow. Paul, what in God's name are you talking about?

You don't wanna ride a horse no more?

No, ‘course I — She grunts frustratedly. You’re being serious, right? About leaving?

Serious as pie.

Simple as pie, you mean. Pie can't be serious. Sometimes I wonder about you.

Paul frowns. It's a little childish—more of a pout. You don't like it?

She chews her lip, gripping the swing tighter. It's not that I don't wanna, but… Laura shakes her head. Don't do this to me, Paul. You know I got my mama to worry about.

He's quiet for a moment, unusually so. But what about us, Laura? When she finds out, she'll…

She's not gonna find out , Laura says sharply, hunching instinctively into herself.

She will, sooner or later. There’s some things you can't stop.

I don't want to talk about her.

Laura gets up and Paul moves hastily out of the way. He hurries after as she marches across the empty playground, calling her name.

Laura—Laura, come on! Don't be like that!

Keep your voice down, Whitaker, before you raise Jesus a second time.

Laura, stop. He takes her wrist and spins her around. His face is cast in the shadows of the jungle gym, handsome and hers, even in the days she used to tell herself she didn't want him. Guilt thorns under her skin.

We can't be fighting like this , Paul says, brushing her hair behind her ear.

Laura sighs. I know. I’m sorry, I just… I don't know what to do. I'm scared. I think of all the things that could happen, or the things she might do and I just… It was a rare thing for her to admit her fear.

Paul hums, tracing her cheek with the pad of his thumb. His other hand cradles her hip and draws her close. You know what? You're right. Let's just drop it for now. Think about something else.

He presses his forehead to hers. His irises are the same shade of green as the woods she'll lose him to. We'll figure it out together.

“Fuckin' hell,” Laura swears, climbing out of the recliner. She stalks towards the Victrola and all but rips the record out. The needle screams in pain.

Laura isn't sure what she wants more: for there to keep being nothing, or for there to be an answer.

Chapter Text

After he's dressed and showered that morning, Christopher calls Mr. Cotton on the landline. He pinches the cord between his fingers, the nail of his pointer digging into the head of his thumb.

“Uh… Hello?” Mr. Cotton’s voice is sleepy.

“Good morning, this is Christopher Henris,” Christopher says immediately. “Can you teach me how to play guitar?”

An hour later, Mr. Cotton is standing awkwardly in the living room, a guitar case slung across his back. Sally has sequestered herself in her room and Rodney is sitting in the kitchen with a cup of coffee he won't be able to down more than a couple sips of. He acknowledges Mr. Cotton with a gruff nod as Christopher leads him down to the basement, planning to sit in the living room and wait for his son to emerge. He doesn't trust anyone anymore.

When Jonah had gotten his first electric guitar on his fourteenth birthday, Rodney had agreed to let him have a small section of the basement to himself where he could keep it set up and play whenever he wanted (Christopher liked to refer to it as Jonah's Dungeon ). Much like his brother's room, the area has been trapped mercilessly in time; Jonah was the last person to have touched anything within its cinder block confines. His Ibanez reclines in its metal stand, coated in a layer of dust. Beside it, a cheap amplifier bedecked in peeling stickers, some of them put on by Christopher himself. Against the wall to the right of where he and Mr. Cotton stand is an old shelf that used to function as decoration in the upstairs’ hallway. Stacked atop are cassette tapes, notebooks, and stray guitar picks Jonah didn't often use.

A beat-up drum pad and metronome sit next to the shelf, along with band posters and scribbled setlists. Above that, a slim, rectangular window allows little more than a sliver of sun to see by during the day. The room is otherwise lit by a flickering overhead bulb, supplemented by a line of string lights below the window.

Christopher sits on a couch cushion by the drum pad, where Jonah liked to lounge while he was scribbling in one of his many notebooks. Whenever Christopher came downstairs to be a nuisance and he was sitting there, Jonah would scoot over and hand him a notebook of his own to put lyrics in. He’d say he'd make them into a song and that anything was fair game, so Christopher would purposefully write the stupidest things he could come up with. There was a joy like nothing else watching Jonah try not to cringe as he performed I Like Sucking on Bush’s Toes . Their mom had heard it through the vents and was none-too-pleased, and Christopher had taken it upon himself to show her some of his favorite pieces: Fart Symphony No. 2 , The Ballad of Will the Dork, and Jonah Smells Like Feet (Because He Likes Sucking on Toes) .

“You can sit there if you want,” Christopher says, gesturing with his chin at the folding chair by the amplifier. Mr. Cotton complies with a breathy, “Ah, yes,” and pulls off his guitar, settling across from him.

He soon has his guitar out: an acoustic Washburn in pristine condition. Mr. Cotton talks casually as he's tuning, but the conversation quickly withers into silence. Not for lack of trying on Christopher's part—he simply doesn't have the energy for good responses. He'd chosen this room in hopes of feeling close to Jonah, but now he's starting to regret that decision. The walls feel like they're closing in on him.

“First things first,” Mr. Cotton starts, smiling. “How much would you say you know?”

“Not a lot,” Christopher admits.

Jonah had tried to teach him a bit in the past, but Christopher’s attention was forever fleeting, diverted as soon as another thing of interest came along. He regrets that, now.

“That's alright,” Mr. Cotton says reassuringly. “I think we’ll just start with some simple chords—that’s the basis of pretty much anything you'll do on any musical instrument.” He chuckles. “You caught me a little off-guard so I'm a bit unprepared, unfortunately. Guess it's only fair after that scare I gave you at the vigil.”

“Sorry about that…” Christopher murmurs.

“It's okay. More than okay, honestly. I had nothing else to do today.”

He plucks one of the strings at the end of the guitar with his thumb, then the one after, and the one after that—over and over till he's demonstrated the sound of all six.

“E, A, D, G, B, E. Those are the notes of each string from thinnest to thickest. A popular mnemonic to remember them by is, ‘Eddie Ate Dynamite, Good Bye Eddie…’”

He stops when he notices Christopher isn't looking at him. He’s looking at Jonah's guitar. Mr. Cotton presses his lips into a grim line and drops his hand from the fret board onto his thigh.

“RG550?” he asks.

Christopher nods.

“Those are nice replacements for the JEM777s. More affordable with the same basic design. I know Jonah wanted something that would allow him to do fast solos and play around with his style. It's a great pick.”

Christopher doesn't answer.

“Christopher…” Mr. Cotton says, hesitant as he lowers his guitar. He chews on his words. “I think you should know that your brother’s one of the best students I've ever had.”

Christopher glances at him. Mr. Cotton is the one looking at the Ibanez now, open and raw.

“Sure, he was talented and a fast learner—that definitely played a part in it—but I don't think he would've gotten very far if he didn't have so much sheer determination. When he put his mind to something, his heart went into it, too. I admired him for that, and I think it's what's gonna make him big someday. But even if he never makes it that high, he'll stick in the minds of everyone who hears his songs. I know he'll stick in mine, even when I'm outta memory.”

At first, Christopher can't speak around the lump that's been building in his throat. A minute passes before he finally chokes something out.

“He said if he ever got Joe Satriani to kiss his guitar, he’d never clean that area again.”

Mr. Cotton chuckles, not much heart to it. “Fair enough.”

In the following half-hour, Christopher learns how to play E minor and A major (Mr. Cotton guides his fingers in place), the basics of  strumming up and down (Mr. Cotton tapping his foot to keep time, asking Christopher to copy him), and an extremely simplified version of a riff Jonah wrote ( I’ve noticed some melodic licks in his music that I can teach you once you're more advanced , Mr. Cotton says, and though Christopher means no offense to Mr. Cotton—a man who's shown him only the utmost kindness—he sincerely hopes that it is not him he learns them from). Christopher also learns that Mr. Cotton played bass in a band called Break the Sky before becoming a music teacher, and that he fell in love with music in the womb. He's gentle and encouraging, almost to a fault, as if he's afraid of coming across as too harsh.

At the end of the session, Christopher offers him $30 from the savings he keeps in a repurposed peanut butter jar as payment. Mr. Cotton profusely insists that he can't accept the money, and that if there's anything else he can do for him and his family, he would be more than willing to help. All they have to do is ask.

“Anything?” Christopher repeats, blinking up at him owlishly.

“Yes,” Mr. Cotton affirms, snapping his guitar case shut. “Of course. Anything.”

So Christopher takes out the folded visitor request form from his jacket pocket and asks him to sign it.

Chapter Text

As he'd anticipated, Sheriff Tate isn’t at the jail when he bikes there early in the afternoon; judging from their run-ins with each other this past week, she should be at the lake until 4 P.M. The other three officers in Coldwater’s law enforcement are on duty, and the one he accosts is a young, mousy woman who eyes him uncertainly while he shows her his visitation form. Christopher asks if he can speak to Will Thatcher, telling her that his teacher signed off on it as part of a “closure” process, and that he reserves the right to speak to Will as he is not yet convicted.

The female officer, who introduces herself as Deputy Lynn, is torn. She initially tries to make him leave, but Christopher remains rooted to his spot in front of her desk. She thinks he's too young, that it's inappropriate, that it's wrong to make him face the man who killed his brother. Christopher reminds her the case is still open and that what's best for him is not for her to decide. It's for his teacher and parents. He bluffs, saying that if she wants further proof, he can call them right now and get a confirmation, and at one point, he even references The Shining , and how Danny had to go back to the Overlook to stop the haunting. The deputy gives in after he promises to make this his only visit. She pats him down and explains the rules before leading him further into the small jail.

The visitation room is sterile and dimly lit. Another officer stands in a corner at the back, his hands clasped in front of him. Christopher sits in a metal chair in front of a laminate table connected to the wall, bracing himself for the moment Will will surface on the scratched plexiglass window separating him from the room on the other side. He wipes the sweat from his palms onto his jeans. There's a part of him that expects to see the monster from December 1, his pupils blown wide and arms so red they burn black in the night. The rational part knows that isn’t true, but it fails to calm his racing heart.

A door opens in the other room. A light switches on, drowning it in yellow. Deputy Lynn leads Will Thatcher inside, his wrists bound in cuffs. He takes a seat and makes no expression.

It isn’t the monster Christopher has been bracing himself for. It’s the same Will he’s known since childhood, the one who used to tease him about the crush he had on his sister and offered piggy back rides when he got tired from following him and Jonah around town. It’s the Will who bought every Batman comic he would come across while shopping and gift them to Christopher, and the Will who would play with him out of his own volition—the Will he has adored and envied in turns. It isn’t, and it is.

Will reaches for the phone at the same time as Christopher. It crackles. Several seconds stutter and die with neither of them speaking.

“How are you, cowboy?” Will asks. His voice mirrors the shadows around his eyes. Anger sparks in Christopher at the audacity of it, and that he thinks he has any right to address him by that stupid nickname.

“You lied,” Christopher says. Quiet, but sharp.

Will exhales. He taps his fingers on the table.

“About?”

“Jonah.”

“Are you in denial?”

“No,” Christopher says thickly. “I just know a lie when I hear one.”

Will smiles, looking away. “Alright, cowboy. Whatever you say.”

Christopher grits his teeth. “I want to know what really happened. I want you to tell me. And don't call me that.”

“I already told them what happened.”

“Then say it to me.”

Will sighs, as if inconvenienced.

“I killed him, Christopher,” he says.

Christopher’s fingers tighten around the receiver. He won't accept it.

“Stop lying.” His resolve wavers along with his voice.

“You keep saying I'm lying, but you have no reason to think otherwise.”

“I do,” he insists. “I do have reasons.”

“Like what?”

“You were his best friend,” Christopher snaps. “You’d never do that to him. That's not—That’s not how it works.”

Will watches him carefully. He leans forward, quieter.

“You think Jonah's out there somewhere? Think he just… ran away and never came back?”

Christopher stiffens, unsure what to say.

“Would he really do that to you? To your mom? Your dad? What reason could he possibly have to leave and never tell you why? To never come back? Does that sound like the Jonah you know?”

“No.”

“Then maybe I knew him better than you.”

 Christopher digs his nails into the palm of his hand so hard it burns. “So you didn't kill him.”

“I did. Just before he got the chance to leave.”

“You didn't kill him.”

Will stares at Christopher for a long time.

“Okay,” he says at last, and leans back. The word burrows under Christopher’s skin like a knife, cutting past sinew with a stench like offal.

“I should've killed you,” he tells him. Will’s jaw clenches slightly, but he doesn't react otherwise. 

“That night—I should’ve done it. When I saw you with her. When you—when you looked at me like that.”

The omission tumbles free before he can stop it. Christopher’s breath is shaky. The skin over his knuckles has gone translucent. He doesn't see the patrol officer step toward him.

“I wish I’d shot you. I wish I'd— ”

The officer reaches him, grabbing Christopher by the shoulder and plucking the phone from his hand.

“Alright, visit’s over,” he says. “Let's go.”

“But I'm not— ”

“C’mon.”

Christopher jerks away, but the officer’s hold is unyielding. He hauls him out of the chair, pulling him to the door. The room is too bright and too narrow. His chest aches with the things he has yet to ask, and it burns him to unbearable degrees when his eyes lock onto Will’s.

The door slams shut. It will be the last time Christopher speaks to him for many, many years.

Chapter Text

On the morning of December 14 of 1991, Rodney is furious at Christopher for visiting Will. Sally looks at her son like he’s broken some sort of unspoken pact. Christopher tells them he was searching for the truth—that he’s certain Will is lying. Rodney threatens to lock him up in the house. He shouts at Christopher to come back down, trailing him as he runs upstairs and slams the door to his room.

Christopher curls up on his bed, listening to doorknob rattle and wood bellow from the force of his dad’s fist. There are strings unwinding, latent and untouchable. He won’t get the chance to tie them back together.

The day after, investigators find an old backpack on the north shoreline of Coldwater Lake, tangled in the roots of a fallen cedar. The inlet it was uncovered from is incredibly small, ensconced in underbrush, and partially frozen. Until today, it has been overlooked.

The backpack itself retains none of its original color except for the handle loop: a navy blue. The rest is a deep, violent red, drenched almost entirely in dried blood. In the body of the backpack, they find the wallet Rodney gave Jonah for his twelfth birthday, Jonah's driver's license, and a photo of him and Will holding Christopher after he was born and just brought home from the hospital. Underneath is a change of clothes, an unopened bottle of water, and a random assortment of packaged food items.

They photograph and document the evidence, writing detailed notes on its condition, location, and amount of visible blood. Scalpels and swabs are used to collect samples that will be placed in paper envelopes and passed along a chain of custody. The blood is rehydrated using saline and dropped in separate wells on a glass slide, and investigators mix each with three reagents containing antibodies for A, B, and Rh factor.

The blood clumps with Anti-A and Anti-B, but not with Anti-Rh. A request of Jonah's birth records from Coldwater General Hospital reveal a match with his AB negative blood type. Considering the type’s rarity and the circumstances, they conclude that the blood belonged to him, and the contents of his backpack further cement the story that he and Will had been planning to run away.

It isn't enough to declare him legally dead—not without a body—but coupled with Will’s confession, Luanne's death, and the evidence, it is enough to presume he is no longer alive.

19 days after, on January 3rd of 1992, Judge Walter B. Keating denies bail, ruling Will a flight risk and danger to society. He is transferred to Coldwater County Detention Center, where he’s held in isolation. Luanne’s funeral has long passed. Only a handful of people attended. Laura visits her grave every month with two bundles of flowers—one for the girl and one for the baby.

31 days after, on January 15, Will’s defense attorney—Elliot Dane—files a motion to suppress Will’s confession, claiming that it was made under duress and that Will was mentally unfit at the time of his statement. Judge Keating denies the motion, ruling that the confession was voluntary and admissible.

67 days after, on February 10, the prosecution—James Forsythe—formally announces his intent to seek the death penalty under Missouri law. Case preparation and investigation last from March through July, and the trials begin in August. The prosecution states that Will confessed to both murders and that his motive is clear: thrill-killing. The defense argues that no body has been found for Jonah, and the confession was coerced. Key witnesses testify. Will takes the stand but contradicts himself, unable to defend his confession.

At home, Christopher learns how to read sheet music. He practices on Jonah’s guitar until his fingers start to bleed—until the malaise that eats at him day in and day out has begun to oxidize. Mr. Cotton observes him, keeping time. He has a roll of bandages on hand for each lesson.

258 days after, on August 28, the jury finds Will cold and remorseless. They are unswayed by the defense, who raises doubts about Jonah’s missing body. Will’s confession, Jonah’s blood, and the conditions surrounding Luanne’s death prove his guilt beyond reasonable doubt in the eyes of the prosecution.

276 days after, on September 15, the day is clear and blue, perfectly formed. The leaves have started to rust and fall, vestiges of a summer breeze tearing them from their perches. Judge Keating sentences Will to life in prison without parole. The death penalty is rejected due to his age and because Jonah cannot legally be declared dead. He is transferred to Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City, where he will remain for the rest of his days.

Chapter Text

At some point in the last six hours, someone shoved a cigarette in his mouth. Might've been Danny, might've been one of the other party-goers. Christopher doesn't know, but that doesn’t stop him from sucking in the fumes and blowing out the smoke. Though his brain is fuzzy from the alcohol, he has enough awareness to recognize the throb of the music and how it shakes the ground—to know that there's a girl in front of him, long-lashed and pretty in a standard, conventional way.

“Christopher, right?” she asks, tilting her head. Blond hair falls over her shoulders.

Christopher takes a sip from his Keystone, stubbing his cigarette out on an ashtray near his elbow. He’s sitting on the edge of a lounge chair, the girl on the one across from him. His elbow rests on the small table beside it. “Yup.”

“I don't see a lot of gigs like yours around.”

“Probably ‘cause mine’s the only one.”

The girl hums. “I like that. It's unique.”

Her hand is on his thigh, now—a point of heat that radiates outward. She smiles devilishly. Christopher doesn't recognize her, which means she didn't go to school with him. He knew everyone in his class before he dropped out. If he were to guess, she's probably from a neighboring town.

“Yeah?” Christopher asks as she moves closer. It's so dim he can hardly make out her features. He finds, as usual, that he doesn't really care. It's not important that he knows her face, nor her name.

“Yeah.” Her hand drifts higher. Her breath ghosts his lips. She leans in and—

“Chris!” Christopher is yanked up. “What the hell, dude? We've been looking for you for, like, ten minutes.”

It's Wes. He pouts at Christopher accusingly, then shoots an acidic look at the girl, replacing it quickly with a smirk. He loops an arm around Christopher’s neck and tugs them together.

“Sorry,” Wes drawls. “He's taken… If you know what I mean.”

The girl makes an affronted noise, glancing between them with an expression of mounting disgust. Christopher shoves him off as she sets out to find someone of more natural dispositions.

“Fuck off,” he grumbles.

“Sure, after you stop whoring yourself around. You aren't a widow slumming it down in 15th-century France. Hey! Simon!”

Wes waves at someone—presumably Simon—through the clots of drunk and whooping teenagers around the pool. His arm is long and gangly, whipping through the air in a volatile fashion. “I found him!”

Christopher is too busy downing his beer to watch Simon emerge from the fray. He can hear the frown in his tone when he says, “Finally,” prying the bottle from Christopher’s grasp. “I think you've had enough.”

Christopher scowls at him, trying to grab the Keystone.

“How would you know?” he snaps.

“Because you’re starting to act like an ass.”

 Simon puts a hand on his chest and holds it high out of reach, interrogating Wes as he does so.

“Have you seen Danny anywhere?”

Wes scratches the choppy, bleach-blonde tufts of his hair, scanning the area. “Nah, not yet.”

“Keep looking. I wanna leave.”

“I don't,” Christopher grumbles, giving up on reclaiming his beer.

“You're drunk or close to it,” Wes points out. “You don't get an opinion.” He chews the inside of his cheek, shoving his hands in his pant pockets.

“But I mean… I wouldn't mind staying if Simon’s up for…”

Simon glares at him.

“Right,” he mutters. “Never mind.”

“Christopher,” Simon says exasperatedly, as if talking to a small child. “We said we'd leave after the set. You agreed. Remember?” He shakes him lightly. “Set’s over. Shit’s packed up. We're going.”

Christopher glances to the side bitterly, but he doesn't tackle the arduous task of changing Simon's mind. Simon leads him like a dog as he and Wes continue their search for Danny, keeping a firm hold of Christopher's upper-arm. The air smells acutely of alcohol and weed, layered atop a pungent musk of sweat. His head is starting to throb.

Less than a minute in, the reverse happens: Danny finds them. He's being buoyed by a pack of cheers out of the house—or mansion, depending on one's definition—of Kolton St. James, a rich kid from Fairsby whose parents are on vacation in the Bahamas (something like that; Christopher can't remember exactly what was said when Kolton asked if Redshift would play at his party, just that he had a wad of cash in his hands and that he wanted this thing to be huge).

Kolton himself is at the head of the mob, whooping and vigorously pumping his arms in the air. Danny tries taking a drink from the bottle in his hand, but he's being jostled so much that it keeps sloshing onto the people carrying him. They appear unbothered, continuing to the edge of the pool.

“ Chug! Chug! Chug! ” they chant. “ Chug! Chug! Chug! ”

Danny—reckless, untethered Danny, the unwashed threads of his black hair whipping about him—chugs his beer, wiping his smile with the back of his hand. The mob hollers, sways, and chucks him unceremoniously into the crystalline water.

“Jesus Christ,” Simon grumbles.

“I'll get him,” Wes volunteers, already jogging toward the disbanding crowd.

“Dry him off and head over to the van. Chris and I will meet you guys there.”

Wes salutes. Simon heads for the back of the house, the designated parking lot for everyone's rides. Perspiration beads on Christopher's brow as memories from earlier that evening swarm his vision: lying to his dad that he was going to band practice at Wes’s, Simon setting up his drum kit in Kolton's basement, trying not to slur Jonah's lyrics into the mic. His stomach lurches turbulently.

“I don't feel good, Si,” Christopher mumbles, disentangling from Simon as they venture onto the manicured lawn.

“What?” Simon's steps falter. “Did you take something else? Hey, Chris—Hey!”

Christopher stumbles back to Kolton’s house, shouldering past boys and girls; men and women, most of them in their 20s. The St. James residence is a gilded, two-story Colonial maze of at least three marble busts (displayed most artfully and ostentatiously), and five bathrooms. He chooses the closest one on the first floor—beyond the Jenga tower of red Solo cups in the living room and the couple making out on the dining table—to puke in, oblivious to the 30-something-year-old man smoking a blunt on the sink. It feels like his innards are unspooling.

The stranger puffs on his roll, watching from the corner of his eye as Christopher rips off a piece of toilet paper and swipes unsteadily at his mouth. He almost drops his head on the rim of the toilet seat, then recoils, realizing that he would be indirectly touching the collective asses of Kolton's family. He scootches back until he hits the wall, tucking himself in a corner against a white wicker cabinet that matches the rest of the sailor-themed decor. He lolls his head and splays his legs.

“You look familiar,” the stranger muses, eyes narrowed in curiosity, glowing like a hippie Jesus beneath the LED lights of the mirror. Smoke curls out of his mouth, reminding Christopher of a dragon.

“You're that kid from downstairs,” he recognizes, grinning. He seems considerably younger with it on. “The singing one.”

“Not a kid,” Christopher grouses, and goes ignored.

“Sick set of pipes on you, man. Banger song.”

“Thanks.” He wasn't the one who wrote it,  but if he says that it'll bring up questions he won't want to answer.

“What's your band’s name again?”

“Redshift.”

The stranger nods emphatically. “I like it. Does it mean 'sumn? Or did you guys just think it sounded cool?” He chuckles.

“It's a phenomenon in the spectrum of celestial bodies,” Christopher explains half-heartedly. “Frequency and photon energy decrease while wavelength increases. Astronomers depict the stretching of light on a graph and consider it a shift toward the red spectrum, so… Redshift.”

The stranger stares at him.

“Right. Yeah.” He takes a drag. “You know, I dated someone in a group kinda like yours once.”

“Did you?” Christopher asks, failing to feign interest. The vestiges of his energy are nearing their limit.

“Mhm.” The stranger gazes down at him expectantly, rolling his blunt between two fingers. He doesn't elaborate, forcing Christopher to continue the conversation himself.

“You broke up with her, I'm guessing?”

“Mhm. Him, by the way.”

“What?”

“I broke up with a dude.”

“…Oh.”

The stranger slumps. “It was a long time ago. But I’m not a queer or nothin’. I was just curious. Like, why do some men want dick over pussy? You ever wonder that?”

“I haven't.”

The stranger ignores him. “Well, he was one freaky guy, lemme tell ya.”

Don't tell me , Christopher thinks. The stranger can't hear him, so he forges on.

“He was into some super weird shit. I mean, mega-uber weird. I thought he was normal at first, right? He acted normal—at least when we were around his band mates and all that. But the more I got to know him…”

The stranger's eyes widen and he shakes his head, dragging his thumb across his throat.

“Something is way off with that dude. Broke it off as soon as I got the chance and never looked back. Pussy for life.” He narrows his eyes again. “You aren't… like him , are you?”

Christopher wrinkles his nose. “…No?”

The stranger's smile returns. “Good, ‘cause I definitely wanna check out more of your stuff. I don't want all that freaky shit, though. You do a lotta shows around here?”

“Not really.” It's a challenge to find places that'll let them perform in Coldwater, or anywhere else in the county and surrounding areas. It's an even harder one to generate an audience. Wes often jokes that they should just become country singers—so often that Christopher’s started to wonder if he's being serious. He could see him playing a banjo. “We pretty much do whatever we can manage to get. It isn’t much, but yeah…” He tugs his shirt collar away from his neck. “Feel free to stop by whenever you want.”

“Sweet.” He laughs at nothing. “What's your name again?”

“Christopher.”

“No last name?”

“Do you need one?”

The stranger shrugs. “Might be easier to find you if I have it.”

Christopher sighs. “Henris,” he mutters.

He bobs his head up and down. Christopher can name every thought in his widening eyes.

“Hey!” the stranger exclaims. “I knew I knew you from somewhere else! You're that detective kid—the one who caught the Coldwater psycho! That guy who killed those two teens a couple years back, right?! Damn!” He shakes his head. “Shame what happened to them, dude.”

Christopher clenches and unclenches his jaw. “One.”

“Huh?”

“He only killed one of them.”

“Really? Coulda sworn it was— ”

“Christopher.”

He and the stranger both look at the doorway. Simon is standing there, a hand on either side of the frame and concern pinched in his mouth. It turns into annoyance as soon as he realizes Christopher is okay.

“Yo,” the stranger greets. “Looks like we got another club member, Henris!”

Simon doesn't take his attention off Christopher. “Get up,” he orders.

“Si…” Christopher groans.

“I'm done waiting. Get up.”

Christopher clambers onto his feet and staggers to the door, the floor tiles rearranging themselves below him. Being on his feet is making the nausea rise. Simon notices, throwing Christopher’s arm around his shoulders as he props him into the hallway.

“My name's Dylan, by the way!” Christopher hears the stranger shout. “Dylan Prescott!”

“Forget him,” Simon says, speaking at a level that Christopher alone can hear.

“How much… How much of that did you hear?”

“Enough.” Simon sucks in his dusty cheeks. “He's got a loud voice.”

Chapter Text

The ride home is relatively short, but it feels like it lasts for hours. Danny runs his mouth in the backseat the whole 46 miles, giggling sporadically in between his recollections of the girls he claims to have thrown themselves at him and the number of Budweisers he drank.

“She wanted to show me her tits, dude, I could tell.”

“Right.” Wes snorts. “What are you? A fifth grader?”

“Shut up, weasel.”

A thump that sounds a lot like a kick drifts up to the front. Christopher leans his forehead against the window of the passenger’s side and closes his eyes, somehow lulled to sleep even with Danny and Wes wrestling, and Simon telling them to knock it off or he'll crash on purpose.

In his phantom dreams, he sees an endless litany of trees and veins in river water. He sees the dark pressing in and the dead girl. He sees a shadow in the colloidal emptiness and a gun gleaming in the moonlight. He feels a hand on his shoulder, shaking him violently awake.

Christopher jerks away, seatbelt catching and digging into his neck—breath coming hard.

“Did you fuck that girl, Chris?” Danny demands, falling back to clutch the cushions of Christopher’s seat. He has a shit-eating grin on his face. “That what took you so long?”

“…What? What girl?” The only girl he can think of is the one who died in Will’s arms.

“The one who stole you after the set, dipshit,” he says. “I saw you with her by the pool.”

A recollection of the blonde with her hand on his thigh resurfaces, so hazy it may have been centuries ago. Christopher shakes his head.

“No,” he says, forcing his voice to steadiness. “No, I didn't.”

“What the hell, man?!” Danny crows, slumping in his seat. “Should’ve sent her my way."

“Good job, Chrissy,” Wes chimes. “Another innocent woman saved from the evil clutches of the Rat King. Would've been the worst lay of her life.”

“I said shut your mouth , Wesley.”

“It's Wes , you cunt.”

“Not on your birth certificate.”

“Guys, enough,” Simon says, tired.

They abide by his wishes for no longer than the span of a minute. Christopher puts his head back on the window and counts the road signs: five stops, four speed limits, and a single WHY DIE ? Simon drops Danny off at his apartment first, then Wes at his sister's house. He kills the engine to his Chevy at the gravel road leading to the Henris’s house, leaving Christopher ample time to get Jonah's guitar and other equipment from the back. Christopher’s name is a lasso he uses to reel him back as he walks past the rolled-down window of the driver's side.

“You sounded good tonight,” he says. “Marginally less shit than usual.”

Christopher lets out a short laugh. “And you sound like a school teacher that'd get fired on his first day.”

Simon smiles for the first time since they left Kolton's. “What? Is it a crime to compliment your friends now?”

“Friends is a stretch.”

“It's in my blood.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Just like how it's in your blood to be annoying— ”

“Right.”

“And deaf, and a pain-in-the-ass who never listens when he's supposed to— ”

“Alright, alright.” Christopher smacks the window lightly. His rings twinkle when they hit the glass. “I get it, Si-Fi.”

Simon’s smile doesn't fade, but it lowers. “Come on, Christopher. Talk to me.”

Christopher drops his hand. “About?”

“Seriously?”

“Yup.”

“Are you gonna make me drag it out of you?”

Christopher kicks at a loose rock. Simon rests his arm on the window.

“You've been off all night. Not just after we performed, but before that.”

“Now I think you’re just makin’ shit up.”

Simon looks at him flatly.

“I was just… I was nervous,” Christopher grumbles. “I was wondering what would happen if we fucked up or something.”

“We’ve fucked up before.”

“Yeah, but it was different tonight. There were more people.”

“Three as opposed to the usual two?”

Christopher punches him in the arm. “You know what I mean.” He breathes in sharply. He isn't sure he could explain it, even if the desire were there. “I don’t know. I just… I’m not ready. I don’t want things to change.”

“Think we’re gonna be famous or something?” Simon questions, humored.

Christopher shakes his head no. Simon’s brows knit under his messy hair. His face is a narrow, angular canvas of emotion, either too many painted on or none at all. Christopher can’t look him in the eye, so he stares down at his boots. They’re relics from three years ago, bought with the last of his savings. Scuffed and overworn.

Something pointed jabs him in the shoulder. Christopher jumps, nearly dropping the cardboard box with his mic set.

“The fuck, Si?”

“You’re overthinking, Chris,” Simon says, brandishing one of his drumsticks like a wand. “Whatever it is you’re worried about… It’s not gonna change. And even if it does… Well, that doesn’t mean it's a bad thing.”

Christopher’s lips press together. Simon reads the uncertainty and reaches for him, but Christopher moves out of the way at the last second, beelining for his house.

“See you Monday?” he calls after him.

“…Sure,” Simon replies. Christopher swears he hears him sigh. “Don’t be late this time.”

Chapter Text

All the lights are off when he steps inside, muting the click of the door with his palm. It melts into the tick of the grandfather clock. Christopher unlaces his boots, slipping them off soundlessly by the Welcome mat. By the basement door, he leaves his mic set and Jonah's guitar.

Tonight, Rodney catches him at the base of the stairs.

“Where you been this time, Chris?”

Christopher stills, gripping the left banister. His dad rises from the couch, impossibly tall compared to the John Daniel’s on the coffee table. One of them is half-full, while the other is down to a single drop pooling in a ring at the bottom.

“Wes’s,” he mumbles.

“What was that?” Rodney comes closer. Christopher’s grip tightens. “Couldn't hear you.”

“I told you I was at Wes’s.”

Rodney laughs. “I'm old, but I'm not senile. Not yet. Now tell me where you really went.”

He stands over Christopher, but he's mired in shadow. Christopher glares at him, for the good it'll do.

“I was at Wes's,” he repeats.

“Okay, then. Doing what? Three sets of fuckin' around till three in the morning?”

Christopher’s teeth grind against each other. “Yeah. Fuckin’ around. And now I'm going to bed.”

He makes it up two stairs before he's yanked backward and shoved against the wall, the air from his lungs knotting in his trachea; it poisons if it stays too long. The sole plate trembles. Support beams quake.

“Don't lie to me,” Rodney threatens.

“I was at a party,” Christopher spits, struggling to get away as panic sets in. “I was at party smoking and drinking and about to fuck a girl. Happy?”

Rodney’s lip twitches.

“Not even close,” he says, and smashes his fist into his son's jaw. The second hit is higher, above his cheekbone. A perfect landing, because Rodney grabbed his chin and held his head in place.

The pain is blinding but dulled by the onset of shock. There are still pieces of Christopher that refuse to believe his dad would hit him. He was occasionally spanked as a child, or slapped gingerly on the wrist when he didn't listen to his mom, but this is different. It hurts. It shudders through him, and all the terrible things he has ever felt rise in gooseflesh along his skin. This is no longer the act of a father reprimanding his boy. This is a man punishing another man who looks too much and not enough like the one he sees in the mirror.

Christopher squeezes his eyes shut, swallowing his tears. Breath ghosts his ear, acrid and warm.

“I’m your father,” Rodney hisses, the words running into each other. “And you're gonna listen to me. Am I understood?”

Christopher considers spitting in his face, or asking why it matters to him when he cares about nothing else. He nods instead, sending a fresh rack of throbbing through his skull.

“Say that again, son. I didn't hear you.”

“Yes, sir,” Christopher says.

“We still have rules in this house, Christopher, and I expect you to abide by them.”

“Yes, si— ”

“Rodney, stop…”

Sally stands at the top of the stairs, clutching her bathrobe with a shaking hand. She's too weak to go down by herself anymore.

“Stay out of this, Sal,” Rodney says.

“Please,” Christopher hears his mother plead—a rare moment of lucidity. “You're hurting him…”

Rodney laughs. It's loud and sharp, like the bark of a dog. Christopher winces, his ears ringing. “What about me, huh? What about you, Sally? You think he cares that he's hurting you when he fucks off to God knows where and doesn’t tell anybody? He doesn’t give a single shit and neither should you.”

Sally doesn't seem to have heard anything he said.

“Please, Rodney,” she begs, fading with each syllable. “Don't hurt my baby, please don't hurt my baby…”

Christopher closes his eyes, swallowing the guilt that’s stolen the last of his breath.

Rodney grumbles something he can't make out, releasing him without warning. Christopher makes a desperate grab for the banister.

“Don't look at me like that,” his dad slurs. “Not like your mother does.”

There will be discoloration on Christopher’s face in the morning, hydrangeas wilting yellow. He can change the color of his eyes no more than he can bring back the dead.

He waits until Rodney has wandered into the kitchen to escape, moving slowly—leisurely—not wanting to betray how he’s barely keeping his legs from giving out. At least the pain provides something to latch on to, delaying the immediate urge to vomit as he crosses the threshold. His dad's punches summoned his nausea again, fiercer than before.

Christopher tosses his jacket and accessories on the floor, then drags his trash can next to his bed, where he lies curled on the unmade sheets. Sleep evades him whenever he’s on the cusp of grasping it. His hand finds the nightstand—the composition book he keeps beside him in the absence of day. It smells like himself, now. Not Jonah.

Christopher peels back the cover, flipping languidly through the pages. There isn’t enough light to see by, but he doesn’t need anything to illuminate the words to Jonah’s many lyrics. He knows each one by heart. He will recite them in his coffin. They are the only songs he has ever sung. Most are finished; others end mid-verse, waiting for the writer to come back and give them meaning. There are scratched-out words and doodles in empty spaces; illegible due dates for English assignments and Will’s neat script on the inside of the cover. The piece at the very back is the one Christopher rereads over and over, like he’s trying to make sense of someone speaking on a payphone three universes off the cornerless earth.

The tuning is a Drop D. The tempo is 88 BPM. The key is in D minor. It’s the only song without a title. Jonah’s handwriting is at its messiest on this page, written in a harried slog that’s near-unreadable. Christopher rewrote the lyrics the first time he reached the end of the composition book so it would be easier to re-read in the future. Though he hasn’t yet attempted to play it, the outro reverberates in him as strongly as the hymns he sang in his childhood.

I want you to stop.

I want you to stop.

I want you to stop.

I know you won’t stop.

Chapter Text

The evidence board in Christopher’s dinosaur-wallpapered room has expanded over the years, having entirely swallowed what it was born on. He had to take down his Ghostbusters and Nirvana posters so he would have space for new leads, and roll up his rug so he could push his dresser to the other side of the room.

“Hey, Si,” he’d said once during an afternoon hangout, somewhere between the years of 1993 and 1995. He'd yet to meet Wesley Calder from Lyons or Danny Ruiz from Jefferson City. Time was less indefinite. He still had his mom. “Si. Si-Fi.”

“What?” Simon didn't look up from his Lego Holiday Catalog. He was perusing the Black Knight’s Castle.

“He was a child actor.”

“English, please.”

“Will was a child actor, Si,” Christopher said, and smacked his pointer finger on a newspaper clipping from 1983 he'd taped beneath his map of Coldwater: Elementary Students Perform ‘Cinderella’ at Town Hall . “He and Marissa starred in it. In fact, he starred in the school play almost every year.”

Simon peered at him through his glasses, frowning. “What’s that mean, Chris?”

“Besides the director being bigoted?” Christopher crossed his arms. “That Will’s good at messing up people’s perception of him. Acting is just knowing how to sell a lie.”

“If that's the case, then consider me a master manipulator,” Simon replied. “I played a background tree three years in a row for The Wizard of Oz at summer camp.”

Christopher didn't share his grin. “This is important, Si,” he insisted. “Will was using his abilities to hide something. I know it.”

If it were Wes sitting on his bedroom floor as Christopher rambled, he would’ve played along before gracelessly referencing some line he’d learned from his therapist sister or read in a book about the psychology of grief—how sometimes the brain stretches reality to compensate for a void, the shape of which is incongruously human. I’m afraid of what’ll happen if you don’t move on , in other words. If it were Danny, he would've told Christopher to get laid and drunk and high, exactly in that order. But because it was Simon, he’d closed his Lego catalog and asked Christopher to tell him about his theory.

The theory changes with the passing of seasons. 572 days after December 14th, in the summer of 1993, he'd convinced himself his brother was in St. Paul, Minnesota, because a boy with shoulder-length red hair was found walking the highway that led into the city. His name was Bailey Stevens, and he’d run away from his neglectful foster family. But at the time, his name could've been Jonah Henris, and he could've had parents who loved him so much that it left an incongruously human-shaped void in them, one that couldn't be re-filled.

844 days after, in the spring of 1994, he’d believed Marissa Sanders played some part in his brother's disappearance (not his death, of course, because there isn't a body, and if there isn't a body, he isn't dead). She’d thought Jonah wanted Will, and Christopher discovered this by complete happenstance. He'd walked behind the bleachers where she and her friends were sitting on their (and Jonah’s) graduation day and overhead her crying about how she hadn't meant it when she'd called him a fag—that if she could, she’d take it all back. Everything.

It had eaten at Christopher for months. Had she simply been calling Jonah that out of jealousy? Did she have reasons to think he’d been different from a normal boy, or that he had wanted Will the way she had? Sure, Jonah never talked about having crushes on girls, and yes, Marissa was not the only one to have called him a faggot and a queer—the boys who bullied him in middle school had done the same until Will intervened. But Jonah was a devout Christian, and he didn't talk about having crushes because he was the type to believe in true love. He told Christopher he would only have a crush on the girl he was going to marry someday, and God hadn't yet led him to her—probably because he was too young.

It made Christopher think of the day he’d visited the jail, however, and what Will had said to him.

Then maybe I knew him better than you.

How much did Christopher know about his brother? Will had been Jonah’s best friend, but Jonah had always been Christopher’s. He’d thought, in his child-like ignorance, that he’d known everything there was to know. But secrets are secrets for a reason, and what college-aged boy was sharing the deepest, darkest confidences of his heart with a little brother in middle school? A child, no matter how many times he insisted he was older than his years?

Christopher had tried to summon memories that would make sense of it all, but the harder he searched, the more cracks he found. The five-year age gap separating them had never seemed so insurmountable. If Jonah had struggled with something—if he had been troubled—then why hadn’t he said anything?

Why didn’t he tell me ? Christopher had hated how much it stung. He didn’t know how to hold it without feeling like his spine had been ripped from his body, nor did he know where to place the idea that Marissa was right, and that Jonah might’ve been a boy who liked other boys the wrong way.

What he did know was that James Zappalorti was stabbed to death in Staten Island because he had been gay, and that Julio Rivera was murdered with a hammer and a knife in New York City, and that Paul Broussard from Houston was killed by a group of ten young men in cold blood. He knew Adrian Millican had been beaten and shot because he was soft-spoken and kind, and that he had liked girls, too. It didn’t matter if Marissa was right (and Christopher had decided she wasn’t for no reason other than that it gave him a sliver of comfort). Jonah had been different, and that was enough. Jonah had been a lot bigger than her, so perhaps she’d needed help and partnered up with a shadow. Will must’ve assisted them with driving Jonah out of town and covered for his girlfriend once they were caught.

That left the identity of the shadow. Christopher had a list of suspects—Wayne Thatcher, for one, and the other members of the Meridian Lodge: Reagan Marshall, Parker Young, and Howard Wilson. He'd briefly considered Clement Thatcher—Will’s older brother—but that seemed too unrealistic. The Clement in Christopher’s memory cared little for his younger siblings; he'd had more interest in football and girls.

Emilio Álvarez remained the most culpable in Christopher's eyes, even when the counselor he was assigned in tenth grade tried convincing him the shadow was a figment of his fear and desperation, heightened by adrenaline. Mr. Álvarez may not have acted directly in the crime, but he knew something he shouldn't—Christopher was sure of it.

The Sanders relocated to Maine the following July, leaving Coldwater and its skeletons behind. It’ll be a fresh start for us , Mrs. Sanders had said. Christopher had biked to their house the day the moving trucks evacuated, so furious his lead was gone that he kicked at the shingled column base of their former porch repeatedly and hoped Marissa could somehow sense the expletives he was spewing at it. Mrs. Herbert from next door certainly had, detaining him in the front yard of her house while she dialed the sheriff’s number.

The place stank of cat piss. It wasn’t quite as unbearable as the resignation in Sheriff Tate’s grimace when she got out of her Caprice and saw him fuming on the sidewalk, arms crossed.

2,348 days after, in the 5:18 light of a mid-August morning, Christopher stands in front of his evidence wall, chewing on a pencil eraser—a hand buried in the dark spikes of his brushed-back hair. The theory is this: Jonah was recently in San Diego, California, following the Iron Maiden Virtual XI World Tour . Simon and his own older brother, Jared, had gone to the one on August 7th, miraculously breaking down only once during the two-day drive. He’d taken a video with horrible audio and photos of varying quality, but there was one in particular that garnered Christopher's attention. Blaze Bayley’s mouth was caught in a balanced O , Steve Harris was using two fingers on his bass, and—standing in the row in front of Simon—was a man with shoulder-length, rust-red curls. In the right lighting, it would be the exact same color and texture of Jonah’s hair.

Christopher had asked Simon if he could keep the photo. Simon had obliged without explanation, but there was knowing in his eyes when he handed it over. Christopher made a copy and pinned it to his board, stashing the original in a manila folder on his dresser.

The Iron Maiden Virtual XI tour stop in San Diego was at the Cox Stadium, which has a concert capacity of about 12,000 people. If 80% of the audience was male, there would’ve been around 9,600 men in attendance, and if 5% of them had hair like Jonah’s, 48 could be him. Filtering the attendees even further leaves 16 men. The biggest unknown is how likely Jonah was to be in the city at the time. The population of the U.S. is 270 million, and if 0.001% of them match Jonah’s description, that would be 2,700 people nationwide. Assuming that an even smaller fraction were Iron Maiden fans and traveled to the concert, the odds lower significantly—a 1 in 60 chance.

It could be anyone in that picture, and it probably isn’t the person he wants it to be. But a one is not a zero.

Chapter Text

Days pass in approximations. Christopher starts them in his parents' room, standing by the edge of their bed with a glass of water, a plate of eggs and buttered toast that will go uneaten, and Sertraline. He sets the cutlery on the bedside table and gently nudges Sally awake, knowing she sleeps late and resists mornings. She shakes her head, muttering about how she doesn't need the pill—how it takes her away from Jonah. Christopher sits by thin lumps of her legs and waits as long as he needs. He asks her to show him the underside of her tongue so he knows she's swallowed. Some days she hates him for it, speaking to him as if he were a stranger. Some days she cries, saying that if he loved her, he wouldn't be doing this.

Christopher arrives 16 minutes late to his shift at Harland’s Auto & Diesel, a small, family-owned mechanic shop near the Phillips 66. Ed Harland, drinking coffee in a reclined desk chair, rants about the bombings in Tanzania and Kenya as Christopher wrangles himself into a grease-stained shop shirt. He’s broadened with time, reedy boyhood swapped with muscle and hardened soma from hours of labor, but his uniform hangs off him like Rodney’s flannels did when he was a closet-raiding seven-year-old.

The morning is spent doing brake repairs and tire rotations. By 10 A.M., he’s elbow-deep in a diesel engine, oil and sweat coalescing on his back. Ed catches him half-asleep and snaps at him to do his “damn job,” threatening to fire Christopher for the fifth time that month. As soon as the antique clock hanging above the door to the storage room strikes 12:30 P.M., Christopher’s out the door and on his bike, a Harley-Davidson Sportster 883 he bought second-hand. He slathers peanut butter and jelly on two slices of Wonder bread for lunch, taking bites sporadically as he reheats fried chicken for his mom. They sit together at the dining table, in spots that haven’t changed for six years.

“Come on, Mom,” he tells her softly. “Just a few bites. You need to eat something.”

Sally stares at the wall and does not acknowledge him. He at last convinces her to take the B12 and iron supplements he put by her teacup, then switches the TV on and returns to Harland’s for the afternoon hassles: a truck that won’t stay running for more than a few minutes; a guy who tried fixing the brakes to his Toyota by himself and nearly totaled it; and a tractor with a blown gasket. Ed is in a marginally better mood, actually deciding to help instead of lazing in his office.

By 6 P.M., Christopher is exhausted, his arms sore and hands black with grease. The work isn’t done, though. He rides out to a nearby farm in his mom’s station wagon after getting a call from 64-year-old Anders Dorsey, whose old John Deere is refusing to start. Mr. Dorsey blessedly ignores his bruised face (unlike the guys at the shop) and leads him into one of the surrounding fields, where the tractor had died on him earlier in the afternoon.

“Silly thing won’t turn over,” he mutters, frustration clear in his stance. “Replaced the battery last month. Thought maybe the starter, but hell if I know.”

Christopher whiles away his freedom under the hood, Mr. Dorsey holding a flashlight for him to see by. He checks the ignition and fuel lines, twists bolts loose with a wrench, and periodically wipes perspiration from his face, longing for a hot shower. After a bout of tongue-biting to prevent himself from tainting Mr. Dorsey’s pious ears with obscenities and nearly slicing his left hand open, he finds the real issue: a clogged fuel filter.

Christopher performs a surgical replacement and makes sure the other components of the machine are running smoothly. Mr. Dorsey’s triumphant, “Aha!” when the engine fires up is almost infectious. He's so happy that he invites Christopher inside for a bite to eat. Christopher—thinking of his mom, whom he needs to check on, and his dad, who’ll be at the bar by now and have left her alone, and of his final errand—says he appreciates the offer, but  he really should be getting on home.

“At least take something back for your mama,” he pushes, slapping Christopher on the shoulder. The gummy warmth in Mr. Dorsey’s smile is what makes him crack.

“I guess I can stay for a few minutes,” he says, allowing himself a small grin. “But just a few.”

Mr. Dorsey chuckles. “Whatever you want, son.”

The Dorsey house is cluttered and homey. The sweet scent of hard-candy peppermints and caramels clouds around Christopher as he sinks into a plush sofa. Mrs. Dorsey greets him from the kitchen, placing a plastic-wrapped tray of cookies and a Tupperware box of meatloaf on the coffee table. He pretends not to notice how she stares at his piercings, the small spikes in the bridge of his nose and the studs in his lobules and rings circling his helices. She pretends it doesn’t make her recoil.

“How’s Rodney been?” Mr. Dorsey asks from the arched entrance to the living room, counting dollars out of his wallet. “Feels like it's been forever since I last saw him.”

“He's good,” Christopher lies.

“I hope so. I worry about him sometimes. Pray for him. All of you, of course, but I’ve known Rodney since our high school years and… ” A shake of his head. “I just want an old friend to be doin’ alright.”

He glances at Christopher observingly.

“You look just like he did back in the day, you know.” 

Christopher smiles tightly, taking the money as it’s handed to him. He counts the bills—20, 40, 60, 80, 100, 200—and balks. It's more than triple what he suggested as payment.

“Fifteen is good, Mr. Dorsey, honestly— ”

“No, no, Christopher Henris, I want you to take and do with it as you wish.”

Christopher tries handing the stack back. “I’m sorry, but I can't accept this— ”

“It is a bit much, Andy, don't you think?” Mrs. Dorsey hisses, touching her husband's elbow.

“They need it more than us, Barbara,” he whispers.

Shame colors Christopher’s neck. Charity money.

“I'll take 100,” he decides, on his feet in an instant. “You keep the rest.”

Mr. Dorsey is about to protest when Mrs. Dorsey squeezes his arm. He accepts the arrangement begrudgingly, as well as Christopher’s insistence that he doesn't need help carrying the food.

The quiet of the car’s interior once he’s inside is both a fortune and a torment. Christopher ends the day by gripping the steering wheel, exhaling deeply, and shifting to reverse, the manilla folder with the photo of Maybe-Jonah nestled in the passenger’s seat.

Chapter Text

Gia Wallace, an intern at the Coldwater PD, has just gathered her folders and zipped up her denim purse. She walks the rest of the building to double-check that no one's at work and everything is in its proper place. She exits the building through the front door, keys jangling as she inserts them in the lock, and doesn’t hear the footsteps approaching from behind.

“How are you, Miss Wallace?”

Gia jumps, a hand over her heart, and spins on her heel.

“Christoph—Mr. Henris!” she explains. “You scared me!”

Christopher’s lips quirk in a smile. He steps closer, heat radiating from him. The ends of his hair glisten, as if dipped in moonlight.

“My bad,” he says. “Didn’t mean to surprise you like that.”

Gia blinks up at the vast, clear blue of his eyes. His height and proximity are cutting wires in her brain. The purple painting his jaw and eye tell her he’s been in another fight.

“It’s fine.” She clears her throat. “What do you—Is there something you need?”

“Yeah.” He cocks his head at the door. “In Tate’s office.”

Gia’s chest sinks. She’d been expecting it, but had nonetheless hoped this late-night visit would be different from the others.

“I really shouldn’t, Mr. Henris…” she says uncertainly. “I mean, one time is one thing, but two times? Three?”

“Has it really been that much?” he wonders absently.

“Yes, and I’ll be in trouble if she finds out.”

Christopher steps even closer. She can smell his musk and a pinch of cologne. It’s the way he lowers his face next to hers that makes her pulse race.

“Oh, come on, Miss Wallace,” he murmurs. “Just one more time won’t hurt. I’ll be in and out before you even get in your car. Besides, I’m gonna be the one in trouble if she finds out. You can lay it all on me.” His lips are very close to her cheek—his voice a low rumble in his throat. “Promise I can take it, Gia.”

She should be fired for how her fingers twitch toward the door.

“Damn right you’ll be the one getting in trouble,” the sheriff snaps from behind.

Christopher’s warmth leaves her in a rush; Gia craves it as soon as it’s gone. He swears something under his breath, and it’s of such a tenure that it clatters in her head all the way back to her Audi.

Chapter Text

“Harrassing my intern again isn’t a good look for you, kid,” Laura says evenly, elbows propped on her desk as she lights a cigarette. Christopher is slouched in one of the two cushioned chairs opposite her, picking crossly at his blunt nails.

“She wants me,” he grumbles.

Laura snorts, snapping her lighter shut. “That high horse is gonna buck you off someday.”

“I’m not—She does ,” he says petulantly, sounding briefly like the child she used to know. “I wouldn’t bother her if she wasn’t— Whatever . Here.”

Christopher takes the folder from his lap and tosses it onto her desk. Laura heaves out a cloud of smoke, knowing what she’ll find within before she even reaches for it. He acts like he isn't watching as she opens the front flap.

Inside are two items: a grainy concert photo of a red-headed man in a leather jacket and a torn notebook paper explaining Christopher’s latest musings.

Taken at an Iron Maiden concert in San Diego, CA , he’s written. Matches Jonah's appearance from behind. Could be him. Next concert is in Monterey, Mexico.

“He said he wanted to try being a roadie once.”

“He probably said he wanted to try being a billionaire for a day, too.”

Christopher glares at her.

Laura sets the paper on top of the photo and closes the folder. “So what’s the plan, Christopher? Gonna drop everything and drive down to San Diego? Hop on a flight to Mexico?”

“Maybe I will,” he threatens. “What’s stopping me?”

She leans back in her swivel chair. “Hmmm, let’s see… Your mom, your dad, your job, your friends— ”

“Harland doesn’t give a fuck about me.”

“Fine, but what about everyone else?”

“I’d bring my mom along. She needs to get out of here, anyway.”

“Hm.” Laura nods. “Alright. And what about everyone else?”

Christopher sits up, ready to leave the room. “I didn’t realize I was gonna be interrogated tonight.”

“This isn’t an interrogation. I just—I need you to think this through for once.”

“I have .”

“No, you haven’t." She gestures at the folder. “I can’t find every person who’s gonna go to this concert or head across the country on the off-chance that he might be there, and neither can you.”

“So what are you suggesting, then? That I just— ” He shrugs in disbelief. “What? Ignore it?”

Laura can’t find an answer. She puffs on her cigarette as Christopher’s chair scrapes across the linoleum.

“I can’t do that, Laura,” he says, turning to the door. “I won’t.”

“It’s been six years.”

“I don’t care.”

“Christopher, I’m worried about you.”

He stills. The lamp on her desk outlines his back and the bunched line of his shoulders.

“I’m fine,” Christopher says.

“I saw your band play a couple weeks ago,” Laura goes on, ignoring him.

“What?”

“I heard the songs.”

He turns on her. “Laura, what the hell?”

“This isn’t okay, Christopher. I know you keep badgering Gia to break into my office so you don’t have to talk to me, but my door has always been open.” Laura stands, leaning on the veneer. she catches him in the eye, hooking him to her. “Something's gotta give one of these days and I don’t want it to be you.”

Christopher’s mouth falls open, but nothing comes out. The planes of his face harden and turn to stone. He leans forward, blame heavy in his sneer. “You think I’m crazy, just like everyone else.”

“No. I think you’re hurting, and you don’t know with that so you’re throwing it everywhere else.”

“That’s rich coming from you.”

In a movement too fast for her to anticipate or avoid, he snatches her cigarette and holds it up to his face, twisting it like a trinket in his fingers. Laura stares at him dumbly.

“What do you think this is, huh?”

“Christopher, that’s enough,” she says, unsettled by the way he’d moved—the vacancy in his tone and the storm in his eyes. “Give it back.”

Christopher looks her over, unreadable, before finally holding out his hand. She grabs it with more force than she’d intended.

“I’m fine, Laura,” he repeats, grabbing the handle of the door, fingers curled around the brass like he might rip it off. “You have other things to worry about.”

Without another look, he yanks it open and disappears into the hallway. Laura listens to the rasp of his boots and drops into her chair with a sigh. She takes a long, slow drag of her cigarette, watching the smoke curl toward the ceiling and hating herself for being so bad at the things she’d never learned to do.

Chapter Text

Days pass in fragments. Sally takes her morning medication much the same as she had yesterday. Christopher leaves a bowl of cereal next to the bed and heads to work. At lunch, he prepares two plates of Mrs. Dorsey’s meatloaf and flips the channel to Touched by an Angel , a show his mom used to enjoy in the years when such things brought her comfort. She watches the picture of him and Jonah above the TV. Christopher coaxes her into drinking her tea.

Ed gripes about how the youth have lost all notions of respect and punctuality as Christopher replaces oil filters and rotors; installing new tires and flushing coolant. Rodney—heady on Budweiser—is in a foul mood when he arrives home from the bar, picking a fight Christopher lacks the self-restraint to deny. He gives his mom Mirtazapine and goes to bed with an ache in his back, the corners of the square banister his dad had shoved him at seared into his sinew.

Chapter Text

Days pass in fractures. Sally takes her morning medication much the same as she had yesterday. Christopher leaves a bowl of yogurt and fruit next to the bed and heads to work. At lunch, he prepares the last of the meatloaf and listens to the newscaster on the TV talk about Saddam Hussein blocking U.N. weapons inspectors. His mom puts up more of a resistance to her B12 and iron supplements, but he convinces her to take them before he’s late for work.

Ed complains about the bruises on his face since Christopher wasn't late but still deserves harassment, going on about how he exudes the distasteful ganache of a felon and that his piercings make him look like an anemic pin cushion. Christopher bites his tongue and bears it. Rodney doesn’t come home until the early hours of the morning. The house wastes in a false truce.

Chapter Text

Days pass in misconstructions. Sally takes her morning medication the same as she does everyday. Christopher leaves food he knows she won’t eat next to the bed. At lunch, she notices him for a fraction of a second as she sips her tea. She smiles and thanks him for making it, and her thumb swipes so tenderly over his cheek that his breath catches in his throat, leftover pizza forgotten in hopes of keeping her tying her back down to the world she left behind—to him. But she’s gone soon after, and observes the wall the rest of day.

Christopher thinks of her while he’s at work, slicing his thumb open with a box cutter by accident. Ed takes great satisfaction in calling him out for his stupidity and fat fingers. Christopher bites his tongue and bears it. Rodney sits in the living room, holding his head in his hands. There’s no bite in his words when he asks Christopher what he’s looking at.

Chapter Text

Days pass in half-notes. Sally takes her morning medication the same as she does everyday. Christopher leaves food he knows she won’t eat next to the bed. At lunch, he makes turkey sandwiches for himself, his mom, and Simon, who’s reading a Wolverine comic on the front porch when Christopher pulls into the farm. Simon, with his magic touch, somehow convinces Sally to take her B12 and iron supplements with minimal fuss. They lounge on the couch in the living room and talk until the last possible minute, an angel with laughter like chimes in the background.

He’s late for work, to Ed’s delight. Christopher frustrates himself tracking down blown fuses and swapping out dead bulbs in headlights. He’s long been in bed by the time Rodney comes home, but before that, he’d sat in the dark and looked through the old family photo albums his mom used to make, tracing the faces of people he knew six lifetimes ago. A woman with red hair and forget-me-not eyes. A man in a marine cap, carrying a child with the woman’s smile on his face. A little boy with the man’s dark hair and the woman’s eyes sitting on a swing set, tiny feet high off the ground.

It was like watching a movie with actors whose names he couldn’t remember, or a home video of strangers who couldn’t possibly understand what it means to reach for something and feel it turn to silt between your fingers. A sandcastle toppled by the tide, lost long before your mother could take out the camera. He scrubbed at the mist clouding his vision, telling himself he was a man—not a boy and not a child and not trapped in a forest with a shadow, even though he senses the shadow so strongly some days that his husk cracks open and they become one in the same.

Chapter Text

Jonah wrote 56 finished songs and over 100 unfinished pieces: melodies, riffs, and lyrics that weren’t fully developed; scattered notes in journals and tapes of him messing around with ideas, many of them Christopher, Simon, and Wes have adjusted posthumously for Redshift. Christopher has compiled a core set list of 15 songs from his brother’s work that he insists on perfecting, and it’s #13 on the list that they’re practicing late into the night. Christopher’s voice is shredded, his knuckles about to split open from how tightly he’s been gripping the neck of Jonah’s guitar. The garage of Wes’s sister, Avery, is cramped and stinks of sweat, providing no balm to the heat pressing in on them. Wes groans, leaning back against his amp.

“Chrissy,” he whines. “Please, I’m begging you. My hands feel like they’re about to fall off.”

“Yeah, I think this is a good place to end,” Simon adds. He pulls off his drenched shirt and tosses it onto his snare. “‘Godspit’ was tight.”

The hope in Wes’s face is clear to everyone but Christopher, who has his back to them. He’s running over the song in his head, smoothing invisible hands over the minute wrinkles and mistakes. At times, Christopher feels like he’s the only one who sees them for what they are: lesions on a memory that must be ironed out.

He wipes his brow and adjusts his guitar strap.

“No,” he decides. “We should go again.”

Simon and Wes stare at him. Danny breaks into laughter and turns in a circle.

“What?” Christopher scowls.

Danny throws his hands up. “Nothing.”

“Not nothing, actually,” Wes interjects, pulling off his Jazzmaster. “I say we play a game of Simon Says where we do whatever Simon says. Well? Simon?”

Simon glances at Wes and shakes his head quietly. Wes deflates.

“Chris, we’ve been running the set list for almost four hours,” Simon says diplomatically. “You’re pushing too hard.”

Christopher scoffs. “So? Are we supposed to sound like shit when we play live? You think I’m gonna let us fuck this up?”

“No, but I don’t think you’re gonna let us breathe, either.”

Christopher’s fingers twitch over the Ibanez’s strings, jaw clenching. The tips of his fingers burn and a couple inches have been shaved off his soundbox, but he can't end it now. He has to keep going.

“If you guys wanna stop so bad, feel free,” he mutters. “I’ll practice at home.”

Simon straightens on his stool, eyes narrowing as Christopher rips off the strap to Jonah’s guitar. Wes looks to the side.

“Come on, man…” he starts. “Don’t be like that.”

Christopher doesn't respond, stalking over to Jonah's guitar case. He'd left it against the wall, between the mini fridge and couch.

Wes breathes sharply through his nose. “…I guess I could go one more time.”

“Don’t, Wes,” Simon says. “Chris can act like an asshole if he wants, but that doesn't mean we have to put up with it.”

Christopher pauses on the clasps, a thorn wedging itself under his nails. It mingles with the other pools of guilt that have plagued him since his conversation with Laura.

He shuts his eyes. Tilts his head away.

“Sorry,” Christopher mutters. “Sorry, I shouldn’t be… It’s been a long day.”

The wafer-thin cushion of Simon’s stool exhales, carrying with it his tepidity.

“It’s alright, Christopher,” he says, this time with a touch of concern. “We get it. Really. But I think you should— ”

“Damn, Si,” Danny interrupts. “Way to kill the mood.”

Christopher turns back to his bandmates. Danny’s smiling to himself, idly plucking at his bass. Simon’s expression is one of restrained annoyance.

“Sorry?” he asks testily.

“Look at him!” Danny sweeps an arm in Christopher’s direction. “He doesn’t need your psychoanalyzing right now. What he needs is to unwind.”

“…My thoughts exactly, Danny,” Simon agrees. “Which is why I was thinking we should all head over to my apartment. Jared’s gone so we’d have the place to ourselves. We could order some pizza, put on a movie— ”

“Paint our nails, do our hair, talk about cute boys…” Danny adds in a high, girlish voice. He finishes with an eye-roll. “Don’t be such a pussy, dude.”

“A pussy, huh?” Simon echoes, gripping his drumsticks like he's about to shove them down Danny's throat. “Then what does the great and all-knowing Danny ‘Dagger’ suggest, since watching a movie is such a pussy thing to do?”

“Dagger,” Wes snickers. It was the name Danny had insisted they call him by in 10th grade.

“Shut up, weasel. I say we go bar hopping.”

Simon raises a brow. “At the one bar here? That’s called stool hopping, Dan. Besides, it’s not what Christopher—or any of us, actually—need. That doesn't fix the problem, alright? Did you ever pay attention during Health class? Or was that an F, too?”

“Whatever ‘problem’ you're talking about isn't going to be fixed by putting lip gloss on each other, either— ”

“No one said anything about lip gloss?”

“ —And I meant somewhere that doesn’t have a population of forty fucking people, Simon , but fine,” Danny snaps. “Let’s crash a party instead. I heard Jayden’s throwing one at her place.”

“No.”

“You don’t speak for Christopher and Wes.”

Simon glares at him. Danny glares back. “What do you two say?” he demands.

Wes sticks his tongue in his cheek. “Think I’m with Si-Fi on this one. Not sorry, Dagger.”

“Hmph. You’re both buzzkills, anyway. Chris?”

Christopher looks first at Simon and Wes, SAY NO scrawled on their faces. He looks at Danny next, who unsnarls himself from his Rickenbacker 4001 and crosses the garage. He's the shortest of them, while Christopher is the tallest. The disproportion is made stark when he puts an arm around Christopher’s shoulders.

“Chris, can I tell you something?”

“…Sure,” Christopher says uncertainly.

Danny smirks, his breath sticky with the faintest trace of beer.

“You, my friend, are wound tighter than a fucking watch spring,” he says, giving Christopher’s shoulder a squeeze. “And I hate to see it. Really, I do. You're killing yourself over these songs, like Jonah's gonna… I dunno… Crawl out of the grave and slap you if you don't play ‘em perfect.”

Christopher tenses beneath his arm, his jaw locking.

“Now, I don't know much about the psycho-shit Wes and his sis are always goin’ on about, or that sentimental crap Simon's into, but I do know this: you keep acting like you got something to prove, you're gonna lose your damn mind. You need to let go a little. Cut loose. Take the stick outta your ass. I'm gonna tell it to you straight, since everyone else is a jackass and thinks they gotta walk on eggshells around you.” He leans in slightly, a kernel of seriousness in his black eyes that Christopher seldom sees. “Jonah's dead, man. You're not.”

“Jesus, Danny,” Wes mutters.

Simon's lips pull in disgust. “Real nice, Ruiz. Real fucking nice.”

Christopher stares at the floor, throat bobbing. Something bitter builds and rallies in his rib cage.

“He's not dead,” he says lamely.

“Gone. Out of the picture. Whatever. Point is, he's not here. And I’m sure if he wanted to be, he would. You’re letting him control you when he ain’t even around to give the orders. I mean, come on, Chris. Whose band is this? Yours… Or Jonah’s?”

Danny watches him carefully, waiting. With a final pat to Christopher’s shoulder, he steps back and spreads his arms wide.

“So, here's the deal. We can sit around in Wes’s stinky garage, playing these songs till our fingers break, or…” He lifts his eyebrows, grin widening. “We can go out and have a goddamn night. No pressure, no bullshit. Just music, girls, and a little fun. What do you say, Chris?”

Christopher presses his lips together. Simon and Wes are already shaking their heads, ready to argue—and yet, he wavers, gripping Jonah's guitar case like an anchor.

He knows, logically, that he should say no. He knows better. Then he wonders why the hell he's even trying to operate by logic anymore. The world has already shown him—long ago, in a woods thick with hardhearted trees—it does not stay within the clean lines and rules that define a life well-lived (or one that makes sense, at any rate). Christopher hasn't been to church in years, nor does he know where he stands with a God he's forgotten how to pray to, but he used to believe that everyone’s lives were predestined; that the choices were already made and the answers already written, never truly his to decide.

It was a concept his dad had passed down to him. Christopher hadn’t liked it back then, and fought against the notion that he was in a cage of pre-determined accomplishments and failings and lost brothers. But at the moment, it provides an odd sense of comfort. Maybe his life is just predestined to fucking suck, no matter what he does. If that’s the case—if all his trying, all his discipline, all his guilt don’t mean anything—then what’s the point in knowing better? He’s only tiring himself out trying to fight a battle he was going to lose from the start.

“…Half an hour,” he mutters.

“Atta boy!” Danny claps him on the back. “Let’s see where the night takes us!”

Chapter Text

Jayden’s place is a white two-story with green shutters and a gray-shingled roof out in the countryside. Four bedrooms, four bathrooms, and 3,562 square feet. Christopher doesn’t remember who let him and Danny in, or what time they arrived—just that the floor sways and the walls warp, the house breathing around them like something alive. It’s overfull, sweat-slick bodies pressed together, chafing in the vinous air. A song throbs in his ears, the bass so deep it rattles the cartilage in Christopher’s ribs.

His head is light. His limbs are disconnected from him. He doesn’t know if it's because of the alcohol or temperature or the way Danny is laughing, half-drunk as he drags him through the crush of people.

“C’mon, Chris,” he slurs, fingers fishhooked in the sleeves of Christopher’s shirt. “You’re still thinking. I can see it. We gotta fix that.”

Christopher shakes his head, but the motion is delayed. His brain sloshes around his cranium. Someone bumps into him—no, he bumps into them? He can’t tell. Faces blur past him in smears of color and teeth, laughter scraping their mouths open.

It’s been longer than half an hour by the time he’s passed a drink. Christopher grips it loosely, unable to place the person who gave it to him or recall if he asked for it. He drinks, anyway. The liquor hits fast, scalding his throat and torching him like gasoline. Someone cheers. Danny? Jonah wrote a song with gasoline in the title , he thinks. The room tilts and flickers—blue, green, red. Their shades pulse past his lashes and lids. Cigarette smoke threads into his bloodstream.

Danny cuts through the din, sharp and electric. “That's it—there he is!”

Christopher’s laughing, but the sound is not of himself, tasting foreign on his tongue. He tries swallowing it, but more bubbles free.

They leap feverishly through the house. Christopher lands on the couch, head tipped back as something strong and fierce is poured down his throat. Then he crashes into the kitchen, gripping the counter to keep himself from tipping over. Danny is everywhere, flitting in and out of Christopher’s periphery. He wields his grin as he would a knife.

The music is inside Christopher, now, crowding the back of his eyes, rattling his molars, shivving marrow. He is the music, and the music is him. Small hands grab his wrist—the petal-soft palms of a girl whose bracelets jangle—but when he turns, she's gone.

“Chris, Chris, Chris,” Danny sing-song, materializing at his side. His pupils are wide and fathomless. “How's it feel, huh? Feels good, don't it?”

Christopher tries to answer, but his tongue is uncooperative. A response slides from his reach. Danny laughs.

“Told you, man!” he cries. “Told you! Feels good to stop giving a fuck, right?”

Christopher wants to say no. He wants to say yes. He wants to speak, but he can't. The ceiling shrinks. A ceramic flower vase and a Panasonic and a picture of Jayden’s family blur together. He's burning, burning, burning—too hot, too tight, stretched thin over something without dimension. Danny is still grinning—still talking. Snatches of conversation filter in the subconscious phlegm of hours. He tells Christopher that he doesn’t have a dad— fuck him —or a mom— fuck her, too —and he smoked when he was twelve, the stick a couple centimeters too long to nest comfortably in the corner of his mouth. He was in middle school the first time he had sex and the girl was in high school. I was so cool for it , he hiccups. So cool.

Christopher can't make sense of anything anymore. What if I were good ? he wonders as blackness taints the corners of his vision. What if I was strong enough and what if I were brave enough and what if I were perfect enough that no one would ever have left? He stands before the glass in the bathroom and draws a face in the fog, uncertain of the contours to whom he wishes he could see.

Chapter Text

He’s woken from a dreamless sleep by blistering sunlight and a painful hum in his skull. A lumpy cushion grates his cheek. Christopher groans, pushing shakily to his elbows. He blinks several times, waiting for his surroundings to come into focus.

“Afternoon, Sleeping Beauty.”

A second set of blinks. A Sony KV-1945R Trinitron and recliner fade into view, but there isn’t much to see otherwise. The area is sparse and drab, brightened only by a large window through which sun cuts diagonally across walls of peeling paper.

“Laura?” he croaks, sounding like a middle-aged smoker.

“Hm.” Laura steps in front of the Sony, at the end of the futon Christopher is sprawled atop. She’s in her uniform with her arms crossed under her chest, silver-threaded hair restrained in a ponytail.

“What…” he mumbles. His eyes blaze dryer than a desert. “Where’s… Where am I?”

“My house,” she replies in a clipped tone. “It was either this or a jail cot. Hope the accommodations are somewhat to your liking, but if not, well…” Laura shrugs. “Clearly you don’t give a shit, so who cares?”

Christopher squints, shifting onto his side so he doesn’t have to look her in the face—a motion of mammoth proportions, given how heavily his body is weighted with exhaustion. He runs his tongue over his teeth, tasting sourness and syntheticity, trying to generate enough saliva to swallow.

“Where’s Danny?” he mutters.

“Who?”

“Danny… He brought me to Jayden’s…”

“So he’s the one who started this?”

Christopher buries his face in the pillow. Laura exhales deeply.

“There’s aspirin and water by your head. Look down.”

He looks down. There is, indeed, aspirin and a bottle of water on the hardwood floor. Christopher hesitates, but the hum is merciless. He sits up slowly and reaches for the bottle, hands trembling as he downs the pills. He hates that she sees it.

Laura says nothing. She eventually wanders into the kitchen, following the bitter waft of coffee. He’s thankful for the absence of her eyes.

“You’re the luckiest kid on this damn planet, Christopher,” he hears her say. “I swear to God…”

Chapter Text

They sit in the plastic chairs of her backyard, listening to a choir of neighborhood dogs and chittering birds from the shelter of layered leaf bushels. The sky is already the pinkish-orange of evening. Laura downs a mug of black coffee with speed that hasn’t been dampened by time; Christopher nurses his water bottle, the hum ebbing gradually away. He learns that someone found him stumbling around on a gravel road and called the sheriff. The sheriff—against her better judgement—had taken pity on him and driven him home. No one answered the door when she knocked, which is how he ended up on her futon (if it happens again, though, it'll be a jail cot).

“Who?” Christopher asks, wondering at the identity of this mysterious individual. It couldn't have been Danny.

“Your guardian angel,” Laura replies.

Laura circled around the area with an inkling that something was off. Christopher had many faults, but waltzing about intoxicated was a first for him. She’d then found the Cooper farm and busted Jayden’s party with Deputy Lynn. Jayden herself had been mortified; she insisted that it’d been her friend’s idea to host it, and participating in such satanism was not something she’d do of her own volition.

Laura listened patiently, but did not hesitate to call Mr. and Mrs. Cooper (both of whom were staying a few nights with Mrs. Cooper’s sickly mother), prompting Jayden to burst into tears. Most of the partiers had fled on site, but the worst of the bunch—too inebriated to know what was going on—were caught and detained at the jail.

Christopher’s own memory of the night is near-nonexistent. The things he does recall are incoherent flashes of strobe lights and noises that reverberate with each blink, interspersed sporadically by Danny's cackle. Laura drops the subject once it becomes apparent that he has no idea how he ended up by a corn field at 4:27 A.M., and they lapse into a silence that isn't comfortable in the slightest—not for Christopher.

He shifts awkwardly in his chair, dragging his nails over his denim thigh. His tongue is in knots.

“Laura…”

Laura grunts in acknowledgement.

Christopher clears his throat. “About Monday…”

“Haven't bought my ticket yet. You'll have to ask again next week.”

A flush of embarrassment crawls up Christopher’s face. “...I don't mean that … I mean…”

Laura glances at him.

“I wanted to apologize. For how I was acting. I was being an asshole.”

“That you were.”

He looks at the patch of yellowing grass between his knees. “‘M sorry.”

Laura sips her coffee from a white mug stamped with Jim Croce’s face. She leaves him wondering for a long, agonizing minute of quiet. It's the least of what he deserves, he supposes. He observes the sinking sun and how her white picket fence spears it from below. A golden-cherry candy apple.

“You know I had a kid once?” she finally asks, though she doesn't phrase it like a question. Christopher is taken entirely by surprise.

“…You did?”

“Mhm. He’d be a couple years older than your brother by now. Had him when I was young.”

Future subjunctive tense. Christopher bites his lip. “He's not…”

“Dead? God, I hope not.” Another sip. “It was a closed adoption.”

“Oh.”

To imagine Laura with a baby—or a family at all—was odd. She had no photos of blue-eyed children on the desk in her office, nor of couples whose features would combine into hers if configured correctly. The walls of her house were barren, devoid of anything that’d indicate the life she’d led before Christopher met her. She wore a wedding ring, but he knew from town gossip that she was divorced and used her maiden name.

“I know, I know… Wrinkled, ol’ Laura the Hermit with a kid. Sometimes I don’t even believe it myself.”

“You’re not old.”

“And you’re Elizabeth II.”

Christopher feels like it would be wrong to press her for more, but his curiosity is insatiable now that he’s been given a drop of her elusive history.

“Why’d you give him up?” he ventures.

“There were a lot of reasons. I was young, for one. Just a bit younger than you. Way in over my head, makin’ dumb decisions left and right.” Laura sets her mug on the arm of her chair. “I was still taking care of my mom, too. Things were hard for us. She didn’t like it at all when she found out. Not one bit.”

“…And the dad?”

Laura takes a moment to answer. “He left.”

Christopher doesn’t push her to elaborate.

“I didn’t think I’d be a good mother,” she continues. “I was sure I wouldn’t. I was so focused on other things… Things that ate me up and spit me back out without a second thought. I ruined this life for myself. Pushed people away while tryin’ to reel back what I’d lost. Fat lotta good it did me, seein’ as I still ended up alone in the end.”

Laura’s hands are thin but strong. He sees the veins rising like rivers under skin mottled by sun spots and callouses. She picks casually at the skin over her thumbnail, tearing and peeling.

“Sometimes I wonder what things would be like if I’d chosen differently. If I’d opened my eyes in time.”

“I bet he looks like you,” Christopher says quietly. “I bet you’d know him as soon as you saw him.”

Laura smiles. “Maybe.”

“You don’t think so?”

“I don’t know, kid.” And she doesn’t, truly, because every time she wonders what her boy might look like—every time she’s thought of him at all—she thinks of Christopher.

Laura sighs, unfolding from her chair and taking up her mug. Christopher watches her, gripping his water bottle with sudden hesitance. She remembers a park bench, a notebook, and a Huffy BMX. She still thinks he looks like Superman.

“Got nothing else to do at the moment. No bank robbers to chase down, no punk-ass kids getting high on a Wednesday night…” Laura ruminates. She holds out a hand to help him up. “Wanna play Scrabble?”

“…Yeah,” he says, and takes it.

Chapter Text

Danny wakes up in the woods, mouth full of cotton and cheek pressed to the cold, damp earth. Bile clings to his tongue, head ringing like someone’s taken a hammer to it. His breath stirs dead leaves. For a moment, the most he can do is lie there, transfixed by the scent of ancient wood and soil.

“What the hell…” he mumbles.

He grunts, rolling onto his back. Branches claw at the sky above him, black veins against the purple bruise of dawn. It reminds him of Christopher and the bruises that sometimes line his cheek. He says they’re from fights, but Danny knows the truth. He always knows the truth. The last thing he remembers is the truth as well as Christopher, who had cracked it from his lips, his hand clamped on Danny’s forearm as they stumbled down the road. His words were unsteady but full of conviction—usual for him. It used to annoy the fuck out of Danny. He and Christopher were cut from the same cloth, but they did not have the same weave.

I dunno if I’m crazy, he’d said. I dunno anymore.

Yeah, well, if you are, you’re not the only one, Danny had replied.

A wave of nausea rolls through him, banishing all thoughts of Christopher. He squeezes his eyes shut, willing gravity to calm. He can’t remember much of anything, so he stops trying to fill in the black stretch of blackness and forces himself to sit up, biting back a groan as he twists his head around. The trees are too close, their trunks gnarled and inscribed with strange shapes—the undergrowth dense and animate. He knows these woods—everyone in this town does—but it looks unfamiliar, somehow. Wrong.

His stomach lurches. He braces a hand against the ground, twigs jabbing into his palms. Gotta be the hangover , he tells himself. The air is placid—a bit cold for August—and he hears nothing but the quiet. No birds, nor the drone of cars speeding the road. Silence—until the snap.

Danny swallows hard. “Hello?” His voice sounds small. It doesn’t carry.

He hauls himself to his feet, knees buckling; catching himself on rough bark. He is split open, divided in the middle with enough coherency for a single thought: find the road.

Every direction looks the same, though. Endless trees shifting as a mirage in dawn, blurred like a smudged painting or a photo out of focus. The hair on the back of his neck prickles.

Danny is not alone. He always knows the truth.

He turns too fast, shadows twisting longer than they were before, as if trying to ensnare him. His own chases after him, drunk on the same poison thick in his blood.

The crunch of a broken branch. A step. Danny's pulse jumps, screaming at him to run. He does, but he isn't fast, not like the middle school boys in P.E., or his mom when it comes to ignoring the good. He runs, but he doesn't get far. He runs, but he doesn't make it to the road. He runs, and he sees the light he has rebuked at the end of the tunnel. The angel of death clings at his back, bearing salvation as he raises his arm and speaks his salvation—for God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.

Chapter Text

Danny doesn't come home.

Chapter Text

“Danny not coming?” Christopher asks Simon and Wes that evening, lounging on the tiny sofa in Jared’s tiny apartment with his socked feet on a glass coffee table from IKEA, the most expensive Jared could find to match the rest of his bland decor. If the man were there to witness it, he’d already be swatting at Christopher’s legs with what he called his Christo-Fly Swatter—a normal yellow fly swatter he used specifically for Christopher.

“Who knows,” Wes sighs, head tipped back on sofa. “Probably off taming a wolf or some shit.”

“No idea,” Simon says, flipping through his pile of DVDs. He glances at Christopher. “You told him we were gonna meet up, right?”

Christopher blinks. “Isn’t that your job?”

“Uh… No? You were the last one with him.” He goes back to trawling the DVDs. Among the options are Silence of Lambs, L.A. Confidential, Natural Killers, Se7en, and more.

“We are not watching Se7en again,” Wes says as soon as he sees it, reaching over Christopher's legs to snatch it out of Simon's hand. He holds his arm high out of reach and leaps from the sofa, grinning.

“‘Scuse me? Give that back.” Simon makes a grab for the DVD, but otherwise doesn't put much effort into trying to retrieve it, falling onto the sofa exasperatedly as Wes prances out of range. “Fine. But that means The Godfather ’s off the table.”

“What?! Dude — ”

Simon doesn't give Wes a chance to complain.

“How was the party, by the way?” he asks Christopher, pointedly blank. “I'm sure you guys had way more fun than Wes and I braiding each other's hair.”

Christopher stiffens. “…I don't remember.”

“You really missed out on some good pizza, Chrissy,” Wes says. “It was the oily, triple-cheese, heart-attack-stimulant kind… Just the way you like it.” Wes shakes his head dramatically. “Shoulda been there.”

Christopher sinks into the sofa.

“I can finally talk without being harassed since Danny's not here,” Simon sighs. “Chris, I'm really worried about— ”

“You were the one who called me about meeting up,” Christopher blurts. “I thought you did the same for Danny.”

Simon turns stoney, peeved at being interrupted. “I assumed he was crashing with you. Isn't that how things usually go when you two are being dumbasses?”

“Yeah, I guess… But I haven't seen him since the party.”

Wes shrugs, flopping back onto the sofa. He crosses his arms, tucking Se7en into his side. “He’s probably with a girl. Remember when he went missing for, like, three days and it turned out he was literally at Rachel’s the whole time?”

Christopher chews his lip. “Yeah…”

“I guarantee that’s what’s happening now. He needs to be neutered, I'm not even joking.”

“I’m sure he’ll tell us all about it whenever he decides to emerge from his dungeon,” Simon agrees.

Wes manages to convince Simon that they should play The Godfather, his favorite movie since he watched it with his dad on his 14th birthday. He recites his favorite quotes as they play on-screen, hogging the bowl of popcorn, Skittles, and Doritos 3D’s to himself (he claims to have a fast metabolism). Simon starts nodding off as the bland clock above TV ticks closer to midnight—glasses sliding down his nose—and is brought begrudgingly back to life by the handful of popcorn Wes throws in his face.

“Really? I just vacuumed this morning…” Simon grouches.

“Don’t care. Eyes on the screen,” Wes commands. “All four of them.”

Christopher twists the silver ring on his middle finger, concentrated. Tom Hagen enters the room where Sonny—now the acting Don—is seated, tension damp in the air and cut of the camera.

Sonny dismisses Luca Brasi’s disappearance at first—Luca is a man who works alone, a silent force of loyalty. But as the seconds pass, something shifts in his expression. The scenes ebb, and the itch on Christopher’s neck becomes excruciating as he watches Sonny unwrap the fish from Luca’s bulletproof vest.

It’s a Sicilian message. Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes.

Chapter Text

Christopher parks his Harley across the street from Danny’s run-down apartment complex—the Grand Green—at 1:46 P.M., his hair wind-ruffled from the lack of a helmet. He shoulders his leather jacket tightly against the chill and the glare of streetlights. It takes him about two minutes to cross the parking lot, enter the front doors, and jog up the stairs to the second floor. Danny's unit, 2C, is at the very end of the hallway.

Christopher rests one hand in his jacket pocket and knocks on the faded brown wood with the other, staring at the brass peephole as if it were an eye.

“Danny?” he calls, hoping he isn't so loud that he'll bother the other residents. “Danny, you in there?”

Silence. Christopher knocks a couple more times, huffing when no one answers.

Who else was at the party? he wonders, retracing his steps. Was there anyone Danny had expressed interest in lately? Anyone he would be spending time with besides Christopher, Wes, and Simon? Danny partied a lot with random people and hooked up with pretty much every woman who showed interest in him, but he didn't have any friends beyond the members of Redshift. There’s Mr. Cotton, who used to be Danny’s mentor and was the one to introduce him to Christopher, but Christopher doesn’t think they’re close enough for him to be the first person Danny would seek out should he need something.

Frustration builds. There are insurmountable holes in Christopher's memory from Tuesday night; he knows only three people who were there for sure, and one of them is himself.

“Christopher Henris? Is that you?”

He looks to his left. Standing in front of unit 2B is a man with short, neatly arranged hair—auburn-hued—and horn-rimmed glasses, the beginnings of a smile shaping his mouth. He's of average height, with strength in the breadth of his frame and draped in a burgundy flannel and heavy-duty denim jeans.

“…Raymond?” Christopher asks, Danny temporarily vanishing from his mind.

Raymond O'Donoghue chuckles, steps back from the door, and offers his hand.

Chapter Text

A kettle whistles on high. The scent of chamomile floods the apartment, twining with the lemon Christopher noticed as soon as he entered. Raymond starts the conversation simply, open and warm even though they haven't spoken to each other in years. The last conversation the two of them had was on May 18, 1992, the day Raymond graduated from high school—the day Christopher had overheard Marissa crying on the bleachers. Raymond had dropped by the farm that evening with a bouquet of flowers on behalf of himself and his mother: white lilies, red roses, purple carnations; baby’s breath bursting from gladioli.

I looked for him every day , he'd said. Everyone was starting to give up hope, but… I don't know. I just couldn't. It didn't feel right. It still doesn’t. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't pray for him.

“How’s life been treating you, Christopher?” he asks now, taking two mugs out of a cabinet by the sink. They're smooth and unblemished, just like everything else in his home. Christopher is sitting on a brown leather couch—the kind that looks more at ease in a waiting room than a living room—and absorbing the pictures on the wall, having taken in the rest of the furniture. Most of them are childhood ones of Raymond and a paunchy, pretty woman with an 80s perm Christopher assumes must be his mother. There’s a framed proverb by the corner of the hallway: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

“Like a bad ex,” Christopher replies. “But I’ve been getting by.”

Raymond laughs. “You’ve definitely grown up, haven’t you?”

He shrugs, though Raymond can’t see it from this kitchen and with his back turned. “Guess that’s what happens when you get older,” he says lightheartedly.

“I still remember when you were just up to my shoulder. You’re so tall now. But then again, you always were a pretty big kid. Just like your brother.”

Raymond sets one of the mugs on the coffee table (a model more modest than Jared’s), steam curling about him. He moves with practiced ease, measured and effortless—a man who does not rush. He settles into the armchair across from Christopher, posture relaxed but upright.

“What about you?” Christopher asks, reaching for the mug. He glosses over the nod to Jonah. “What’ve you been up to?”

“This and that. Getting sawdust all over myself, mostly. I take odd jobs around town. You might’ve seen me repairing Mr. Hoover’s fence once or twice. Thrice, maybe. Quadrice, if we're really gonna push it.”

Christopher grins. “That thing looks like it’s about to blow over every time I pass it.”

Raymond drinks his tea, lifting his eyebrows in as if to say I know, right ? “I think he’s wrecking it on purpose so I’ll keep bringing him free cookies.”

“Cookies, huh? Make them yourself?”

“Yup.”

“I didn’t take you for a baker.”

“Neither did I. My mother enjoyed it herself, and I wanted something I could… I don’t know… Something I could use to keep her alive after she passed, I guess, so I took it up myself. If that makes sense.”

Christopher takes his first sip of tea, partly to hide his face. He doesn’t trust himself not to wear his heart on his sleeve. The ceramic is hot on his palms. “It does,” he says.

Something remorseful touches Raymond’s smile. “I heard you’re in a band.”

“Really?”

He nods. “You get to know everything about everyone in these parts. But yeah, besides that… I think you’re the only one around, so it stands out. Redshift, if I remember correctly?”

“You do.”

“And the guy next door? Danny Ruiz? He’s part of it, right?”

“Uh-huh.” Christopher drums his fingers on his mug. “He’s actually why I came here so late—or early, I guess. Just wanted to check up on him. We haven’t seen him in a couple days.”

Raymond’s eyebrows swoop up again. “Really?”

Christopher’s drumming slows. “Yeah. Why?”

Raymond leans back slightly, rubbing his chin. “Just that I haven’t seen him, either. Usually, I hear him coming in at night or messing with his keys—something along those lines. I work real late sometimes, so it's noticeable. He's especially loud when there's someone else with him. Things have been quiet, though.” He tilts his head. “I actually went over yesterday to ask if he could help me with something, but he didn’t answer. Figured he was out.”

Christopher frowns, his flicker of unease flaring. “That’s not unusual for him, I guess…”

“Maybe he’s laying low,” Raymond offers. “He ever do that? Hole up somewhere for a bit?”

He thinks about it, shifting through the times Danny has gone off the grid for a couple days. Danny isn’t like Simon and Wes, who’ve knitted themselves so close to both Christopher and each other that he intrinsically knows the alignment of their days and lives.

As soon as Simon’s family had moved to Coldwater in 8th grade and Christopher glimpsed him playing drums in the music room with more skill than any of the other band kids, they'd crashed fiercely and involuntarily into each other—Christopher the magnet and Simon the metal. He'd had a similar experience with Wes, but the only difference was that Wes was not metal, but also a magnet. He'd acted like they'd been friends their whole lives the day Christopher approached him, as if he already knew what was about to be asked. The three of them require the others to function properly, for they're a set as much as they are a band. Simon reels Christopher (and Wes, on occasion) back from the limits of his carelessness, and Wes—the most soft-edged of them—is the middle ground that keeps them whetted.

After they'd found Danny, Simon had once wondered aloud at the improbability of collision. Growing up, he hadn't thought he would ever meet people he could truly be himself around—people who wouldn't judge him for his interests and who shared his taste in music and who listened tirelessly to his ramblings with contributions of their own. He hadn't been raised a Christian, but he figured it was some sort of divine intervention: a perfect alignment of stars by a higher power above. Wes agreed.

I was such a friendless loser, dude , he'd said, shooting Avery’s hair ties at them like bullets. Simon and Christopher had started to shoot them back. I mean—I still am, but now I'm just a lose—you rat! Right in my fucking eye…

Danny, on the other hand, had laughed, rolled onto his back on Wes's bed, and asked if he'd signed up for a prayer group rather than a band. Simon, Christopher, and Wes had exchanged glances while his back was turned, and the subject wasn't breached in his presence again. It was clear to them, then, how he operated: independently, expecting everyone else to adjust to his configuration without question. They're Redshift to him. Nothing more, nothing less.

“Yeah…” Christopher admits, though it doesn’t sit quite right. “Still…”

Raymond’s frown deepens. “So no one at all has seen him? ”

Christopher shakes his head. “Not among us, at least.”

“Want me to keep an eye out? If I hear anything, I can let you know.”

“Yeah… Yeah, that'd be great.”

“I can ask around, too. See if anyone’s run into him.” Raymond runs his thumb over the handle of his mug. “I'm sure he'll turn up, but… I take these things seriously now.”

He spends the following hour that it takes to drain their tea talking about his exploits since graduation. He's a carpenter and freelance repair man working out of his Ford. He's perfecting his grandmother's recipe on brown-butter brownies. He visits the nursing home with Reverend Cates on Wednesdays for bingo night. Sometimes he does gardening at the church, dressing it in pastels and emerald greens. He still prays for Jonah.

Christopher, in return, gives him the meat of his life and trims the fat. There's a catharsis in speaking to someone definable as a stranger.

I work at Harland's. My mom doesn't come out much anymore. She's doing okay. Neither does my dad, but he's still the greatest man I've ever known. He takes things hard but he gives them back harder. He's doing okay. We had to sell the horses. I miss them sometimes. I miss them everyday.

Chapter Text

Christopher waits. Danny doesn't show for band practice. Simon and Wes are stumped, the first signs of true worry showing in their befuddlement. Danny never misses practice, even if he’s with a girl. Christopher abandons Avery’s garage and returns to the Grand Green—this time with Simon and Wes in tow—and bangs uselessly on the door of 2C. He tries 2B, too, but Raymond doesn’t appear to be home.

“What’s this place called again?” Wes asks, nose wrinkled as he stares at a mold spot around the window. “Gangrene?”

“Grand Green,” Christopher corrects, rooting around in his pockets for a bobby pin.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Simon asks, narrowing his eyes.

“Getting inside.”

“…Are you serious right now?”

He snatches Christopher’s wrist. Christopher glowers at his hand, taped up from his drumming. “This isn’t a movie, Chris, okay? We’re not breaking in. We’re gonna call the cops and— ”

“And wait three business days for them to get off their asses and do something?”

“Tate’s not like that.”

“Sure, but the rest of them are. They’re not gonna give a shit about him, Si, you know that.”

“Okay, but— ”

“What if he OD’d or something?”

Simon blinks at him. Wes looks from the window to the door, his expression chilled. “You don’t think he could’ve… Could he?”

“I don’t know,” Christopher says sharply, tugging his arm away from Simon. “But I don’t wanna wait to find out.”

Christopher frees a bobby pin from one of the back pockets of his pants and kneels in front of the door, jamming it inside.

“This would’ve been cooler under different circumstances,” Wes ruminates, voice a whisper.

“What?” Simon hisses, his patience thinning. “Breaking and entering?”

“Yeah, basically.” A pause. “You think there’s cameras?”

“No,” Christopher answers. He already checked for those.

“I still think this is a bad idea,” Simon says.

“Then look away.” Christopher jiggles the bobby, angling it against the pins inside the lock.

“Where’d you learn to do this, anyway?” Simon demands. “One of your new friends from that party?”

Christopher takes a second to glare at him over his shoulder.

“Makes me wonder what else you’ve been up to that we don’t know about.”

“Shut up.”

“No, Christopher.” Wes tells Simon to keep his voice down, but he blazes on heedlessly. “I’m fed up with this. You’re getting worse.”

“Worse.”

“Yes. You are. You barely listen to us anymore, you're reckless as hell, you act like nothing matters, and now— ” Simon scoffs. “Now you're pulling shit like this.”

Christopher exhales, trying to keep his focus. “What? You think I'm robbing houses now?”

“Maybe! I wouldn't fucking know, seeing as you don't tell us anything.”

“Tell you what?”

“Jesus Christ—Tell him, Wes.”

“Tell him what?”

“Tell him how much of an asshole he is.”

“You’re the fattest asshole out there, Chrissy.”

“Thanks.”

“The fattest asshole with the fattest ass.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m being serious.” Simon sounds like he wants to snap his glasses in half.

“Trust me, you're not the only one who’s serious about this,” Wes says pragmatically. “I very much think Christopher is an asshole and it bugs me the hell out. And yes, I very much think he needs to be slapped upside the head and stop being an annoying dick. But I also don't think this is the time or place for that slap.”

“There is no time or place,” Simon snaps. “There will never be one! He makes sure of that.”

Christopher stops jiggling the bobby pins, looking at Simon properly this time.

“I make sure?” he echoes.

Simon stares him dead in the eye, jaw clenched. “ I’m not ready ,” he parrots. “ I don't want things to change . What does that mean?”

“Doesn't matter.”

“Don't care.”

“I was drunk.”

“I want you to say it out loud.”

“Okay, what the fuck are you guys talking about?” Frustration is starting to creep into Wes’s tone.

Christopher turns his back to the both of them, pinching the bobby pin with renewed vigor.

“Nothing,” he mutters.

“Here we go again.” Simon laughs humorlessly, running a hand through his hair. “You’re so fucking exhausting.”

Christopher’s response is the click of the latch as it gives.

“Holy shit,” Wes breathes. “You gotta teach me that.”

“Unbelievable,” Simon grumbles.

Christopher pushes the door open. The room yawns before them, dark and stale. Curtains are drawn, but a neon glow filters in from across the street.

“Danny?” Wes tries, stepping in just enough to flip on the light switch. A bulb putters to life, emitting a weak, jaundiced glow. “You there, man?”

Nothing. Christopher walks inside first, leading them in. The interior of the apartment is impossibly small and messy, there being little to differentiate the kitchen from the living room besides the usual appliances: a whining fridge, an oven pockmarked with mysterious stains, and a microwave with the door slightly ajar, to name a few. His foot nudges a pile of dirty clothes by a flea-bitten couch—black shirts and black jeans thrown over each other in a black heap. The bathroom is in a similar state of disarrayed decay, smelling like rotting food and something vaguely chemical—a bite of acetone. On the nightstand in the miniature bedroom is a half-empty glass of water beside a pack of cigarettes, a lighter balanced on top. It's barely enough space for the bed, the desk, and the chipped wooden wardrobe arranged haphazardly within. Danny, overdosed or not, is nowhere to be found.

“Looks like he hasn't been here for a bit…” Simon says.

Wes eyes the open wardrobe, in which hang studded belts, more black clothing, and a battle vest. He pokes a shoebox with his ratty red Converse. “He’s gotta be at someone else's, then… Right?”

“Hopefully…” Simon purses his lips, gazing unreadably at the wallet on the bed. “I think we should go. There's nothing here.”

Christopher takes a final look around. The silence uneases him—everything feels too still and too disturbed. It makes his itch flare up again, but he supposes Simon is right. They touch nothing and close the door softly as they leave, not nearly as talkative as they'd been before.

Chapter Text

13 days till October 16. Laura draws an X over October 2 and takes a step back from the calendar on her fridge, contemplating what flowers she’ll leave for Jonah Henris this year. The first had been carnations. The last had been alstroemerias. Though there was no body to bury, Reverend Cates had suggested a funeral be held, anyway, in hopes of bringing some form of closure to his family. Everyone in town had gathered on a balmy day in July, 1992, dunked in black around a coffin bereft of its corpse—everyone but the people it had been held for. She has never seen Christopher at his brother’s grave.

In one more year, he can legally be declared dead. She finds it funny, in a morbid sort of way, how they act as if he hasn't already been taken. As if a date on a paper can turn a missing boy into a dead one.

Laura drifts through her nightly rituals. She brushes her teeth with the bathroom light off, watching her reflection in the light streaming from the hallway—an outline of herself. The suggestion of a woman. Bristles scrape against her gums, the mint sobering, like swilling winter in her teeth.

She spits, and wonders if grief has a life of its own as the water spirals down the drain. It must. Only people can hurt other people so thoroughly and absolutely. Paul is gone and buried. So, too, is Jonah, but this time without the courtesy of remains. A hole in the earth, in the town, and in the space between people's words where they used to mention his name. A boy she hardly spoke a word to but feels certain she must know as well as her own flesh and blood in another life.

What will happen to Christopher once the seven years have passed? He moves through the world like a stray dog, snapping at hands that reach too close. He’s already partially severed, as though he were born with a fraying thread where others have a lifeline. If it snaps completely, what will she have left of him? An empty box in the dirt is no more a body than an echo is a voice. The act of breathing does not equate to life if there isn't a reason for the lungs to pump.

Laura dries her hands, flicking the excess water from her fingers. The house is draped in the kind of quiet that screams of absence. In the kitchen, she wipes down the counter and puts the dishes in the cabinet, thinking back to the flowers. What color would work best? White is too pure, too false. Yellow is too bright, too inconsiderate. Maybe blue, deep and bruised, like the underside of the sky as a storm rolls off the hills and October hides its faceless eyes.

The phone rings, disrupting her chain of thought. Laura frowns as she steps around the island and answers.

“Laura Tate speaking,” she recites. “What's your business?”

He doesn't have to say his name. She knows Christopher by the sound of his voice alone.

Another boy has gone missing.

Chapter Text

1991 reverberates throughout the hours ensuing Christopher’s call. Laura feels its vice-like grip as she takes his statement at the sheriff’s office. She asks where he last saw Danny and what his behavior was like on the night of August 26, but the information Christopher has is barely enough to paint a dab of color on the canvas. She sees the conflict in the furrow of his brow and hears the guilt in his voice as he desperately tries to grasp at memories he doesn’t have. I don’t remember, he says. I can’t remember.

She speaks to the landlord at Grand Green Apartments, a man by the name of Ethan Berger, who tells her that rent was paid, but that Danny hasn’t been seen or heard from in days. She stops by the record store where he worked and discovers that the owner, Amelia Foster, had been planning to fire him for missing several shifts in a row without notice.

“It’s not that unusual for him to miss a shift or two without lettin’ me know,” Mrs. Foster says, leaning on the counter with a cigarette in hand. “So many in a row, though?”

She shakes her head, taking a drag. “That kid is trouble with a capital T. I’m done puttin’ up with him.”

Laura writes each bit of information she gleans in her notepad, and as soon as she returns to the office, she files an official missing person’s case for Danny Ruiz and tells Deputy Lynn to contact Jayden Cooper, as well as every other person they caught at her party.

Chapter Text

At 8 A.M., KTMR Channel 5 News, the local station, runs a special segment on the missing boy. The newscaster’s voice, laden with sensationalized sympathy, blasts into the shop through the open doorway of Ed’s office.

“Nineteen-year-old Danny Ruiz was last seen a week ago at a party on the outskirts of town,” the anchor says. “After days of silence, a missing person report was officially filed. The Coldwater Sheriff's Department is urging anyone with information to come forward.”

Christopher wipes the grease from his hands onto his shirt as Laura—tired, yet serious—takes the place of the anchor.

“As of now, we're following up on all possible leads. We understand the community's concerns, and we plan to treat this case with the urgency it deserves. If you saw or spoke to Danny Ruiz in the past week, we encourage you to contact us immediately.”

“Janet,” the anchor says, the footage cutting back to him. “I understand this case is bringing back difficult memories for many Coldwater residents. What can you tell us?”

“That's right, Tom,” Janet concurs, entirely too chirpy. Christopher pulls a wrench from his kit with excessive force. “The circumstances surrounding Danny Ruiz's disappearance are stirring up painful reminders of another young man who vanished this month seven years ago: Jonah Henris. The similarities are hard to ignore.”

A short pause. Christopher imagines a picture on-screen of Jonah smiling up at the camera from his bedroom floor, perhaps next to a yearbook photo of Danny. Coldwater's Missing Boys , the caption might read. 1991 - 1998 . He feels his co-workers—36-year-old Frank and 16-year-old Gregory—glance at him.

“Jonah was only 18 when he disappeared on October 16, 1991, missing for over a month before the truth of what happened to him came to light. Despite extensive searches, his body was never found. Will Thatcher, who claims to have been planning to run away with Jonah, confessed to both his murder and the murder of Luanne Calloway, a 17-year-old girl from the neighboring town of Lyons. The case sent shockwaves through our communities.

“Now, with another young man missing under eerily similar circumstances, Coldwater is on edge. Is it purely coincidental? Or could these cases be connected? Do we have another Will Thatcher in our midst?”

“Well, Janet— ” Tom says, and does not get to finish.

“Change the channel,’” Christopher says, having stomped into Ed’s office. “Please.”

Ed glances up from where he's reclined, feet on his desk and gray, furry eyebrows drawing together in surprise. Littered across his paperwork are crumpled breakfast sandwich wrappers (piss-yellow), an empty donut bag, and a cardboard coffee cup from the Phillips 66.

“Last time I checked, Mr. Henris,” he starts lackadaisically, folding his hands atop his rotund belly. “I'm the boss and you're the employee. I give the orders and you make sure they happen. Not that hard to get.”

“Please,” Christopher repeats.

Ed snorts, dumbfounded. “Why? They’re buttering you up better than Texas toast on there. I wouldn't be complaining, personally. Your reputation could certainly use a clean-up.”

Tom and Janet have shifted the focus of the report back to December 1, 1991—to how young Christopher Henris, just 12 years old at the time, had taken matters into his own hands and ventured into the woods, determined to find Jonah. He braved the cold and snow (which was less than an inch high) with nothing but his father's gun. He found not his beloved brother, but the boy who took his life: Will Thatcher, the body of Luanne Calloway cradled in his bloody arms.

“But you're not,” Christopher declares. “So can you please change the channel?”

Ed’s eyes turn to slits in his pudgy face, but he grabs the remote and does as requested. The newscasters are overtaken by a glitzy, repetitive pop beat—the type of music Christopher generally tends to hate, but a more than welcome reprieve from Tom and Janet.

“Thank you, Mr. Harland,” he says deferentially, turning back to the shop.

“You're walking on thin ice, Henris…” he growls.

“Better me than you,” Christopher grumbles.

“Hmph…” Ed’s chair suddenly snaps as he flies upward. “Hey, what was that?! What'd you say to me, you little punk?”

Christopher slams the door on his way out.

Chapter Text

The news ignites on the lips from one to another, shifting first from Ethan Berger and Amelia Foster to the shopkeepers, the churchgoers, and the hearts of the gossip circles. Parallels are made and lines are drawn. Parents enforce stricter curfews on their children, warning them not to leave the yard. The elderly hack of curses, of bad omens, of sins coming back to haunt the town. He was asking for trouble, some say, revisiting rumors about the old missing boy whose place the new missing boy has taken. This place is damned, some say, claiming that they always suspected something bigger was cancering under the streets. It’s a killer, a cult, a cover-up. It’s a motive without a face. A body without a spine. A coppice without contrition.

Chapter Text

There was no official term, but Mrs. Browner—the school psychologist and part-time therapist at the local clinic—had her own name for the man in the woods. To her, he was a trauma-induced hallucination and a repressed memory response.

Our minds try to make sense of things we don’t fully understand, she'd say. When we experience fear, they create something that feels real but isn’t—a projection of what we’re feeling inside. What are you feeling inside, Christopher?

Christopher had hated that question with a fiery passion. He’d cross his arms and tell her exactly what he was feeling inside.

Mad.

Why is that?

Because I have to be here with you.

She’d cock her head. I understand what you’re feeling.

You just asked what I’m feeling, so clearly you don’t.

Christopher… I want to help you.

Then stop telling me I'm crazy and listen to me.

Mrs. Browner didn't know the shadow like he did. She wasn't there that night. Her ignorance allowed her to equate his paranoia with a coping mechanism for grief and his fear as a way of avoiding his brother's death.

She has to know the truth now, though. She has to have seen the news and remembered him and realized how wrong she had been.

Chapter Text

He drives over to the sheriff's office as soon as he's finished coaxing his mom to eat, speeding through town and parking his bike haphazardly in front of the building half an hour before closing. Denise the Secretary squawks furiously as he races toward Laura's office, and Gia the Intern turns the color of a turkey wattle, primping her hair. Each of them calls out, but for different reasons. He ignores them both, ripping open the door of Laura’s office and locking himself inside.

Laura is standing over her desk with her arms crossed, concentrated on the map of notepad papers spread in front of her. The lamplight illuminates the undersides of her arms, swaddled in the baggy cloth of a tan bomber jacket. The lines in her face deepen when she notices Christopher by the door. She exhales his name slowly, as if uttering a prayer.

“It’s him, Laura,” Christopher says heatedly. “It’s that man who was chasing me in the woods. He did something to Danny. I know it, Laura, I know it. Will was lying about working alone.”

“Kid, I don’t want you jumping to conclusions…”

“Everyone—They tried telling me I was crazy. They said I imagined him— ” Christopher starts to pace the room, burying his hands in his hair as he walks anxiously from one end of the room to the other. “They said I was scared, and—and that your brain makes you see things when you’re scared—things that aren’t real. But I know what I saw.”

He halts directly in her line of sight.

“You have to let me help this time.”

Laura presses her lips together, working her jaw. “Look at my belt,” she commands.

Christopher does. Pinned to the brown leather is her badge, gold indented with a five-pointed star and limmed in blue. Coldwater is stamped at the top; Sheriff at the bottom.

“Now look at yours.”

Christopher does. His leather is black, scuffed and pocked with silver rings, but devoid of a badge.

“Laura— ”

“Sit down,” she orders.

Christopher gnashes his teeth together. “I’m not sitting down.”

Laura cocks her head slightly, enough to show her irritation, but she doesn’t push him. Instead, she leans forward, palms pressed flat against the papers in front of her.

“I understand what you’re feeling— ”

“No, you don’t.”

“Don’t use that tone with me,” Laura snaps. “I do know, more than you realize.”

For the first time since he barged in, Christopher hesitates.

“You think I’m just gonna ignore how you’ve been acting these past few years?” Laura questions. “You think I don’t know how this is going to go? I’ve been through this before, Christopher. I know what it's like to grasp at whatever the hell you can get your hands on and refuse to let go. It happened to me once, and now it’s happening to you. You’re going to run yourself into the ground chasing a ghost. You’ve already started.”

She presses the pads of her fingers to her forehead, troubled in ways unfamiliar.

“I know you want to find your friend. I know you think you have everything figured out. But you don’t, Christopher, and you’re going to hurt yourself if you push into this, one way or another.” She straightens, fixing him with a hard stare. “I won’t let that happen because that’s my job: to protect the people in this town, including you. As much as I appreciate the sentiment, it's not yours.”

Christopher balls his hands into fists. “You’re not listening to me, Laura. There’s no one else it could be.”

“There are a lot of people it could be,” Laura shoots back. “And there are a lot of ways you could be wrong. You’re seeing patterns in every shadow, but that doesn’t mean they’re real.”

He stares at her, hard, for a moment unable to find the right words. “…Don’t tell me you think I was seeing things, too.”

“I don't think you're crazy,” she says sternly. “That’s not what I’m saying. But seven years ago, you were a 12-year-old and scared out of your mind, trapped in the woods with a murderer. Memories warp, especially under stress.”

“That's not— ”

“I'm not saying it is. Maybe you did see someone that night. Maybe it was Will's accomplice. But pinning all your hopes on that one memory isn't going to help Danny. Your judgement is warped, Christopher. You can’t think objectively. You’re too emotionally involved.”

Christopher breathes sharply through his nose, spinning away from her. His pulse is frantic in his ears. “What do you want me to do, then, Laura? Wait for you to tell me he's dead? If something’s happened to him and it's ‘cause of me and—and if it has something to do with Jonah— ” He closes his eyes, shaking his head.  His teeth dig so sharply into his lower lip that it stings. “I can't. I can't.”

The regrets rain on him in droves. It has since he broke into Danny's apartment. If he hadn't agreed to go to that party, would any of this have happened? Would he be in Laura's office as he is now, arguing with her over things he hates to touch? He can’t remember what compelled him to go in the first place. Thinking back to it now, it seems impossible to believe the reason was something as trivial as his self-pity.

If only he’d said no. If only he’d tried to stop Danny when he’d inevitably go by himself. If only he were good, and strong enough and brave enough and—

“Christopher.”

Warmth on his shoulders, swaying him to open his eyes. Laura is there once he does, her hands grounding and the blue of her gaze sobering.

“I want you to trust me,” she tells him. “For once in your damn life, kid, trust me . Please.”

He opens his mouth, but there are no words waiting for release. He closes it, swallows, and nods. Okay , he tells her.

Laura pulls him close, wrapping her arms around his back and clamping a hand at the nape of his neck. She holds him as firmly as she does everything. He doesn’t move from the shock. It’s the first time he’s been hugged in years, the pressure as nescient as much as it is comforting. The movement itself is simple—two arms hooked in an extraction of doubt—yet he’s completely forgotten how to perform it. He can change a tire with more ease.

“Go home, Christopher,” she says as she draws back, patting him on the shoulder. “Get some rest. Be with your parents.”

This time, he says it aloud. “Okay.”

Laura smiles a not-smile, returning to her desk and map. He can nonetheless sense her watching as he reaches for the door, the weight of her doubt and hope on him.

Christopher shutters his eyes, grabbing the handle and twisting it down. He steps into the hallway along the swing of the wood and collides with a girl.

“Oh!” she gasps, the papers in her arms fluttering to the floor. Christopher stumbles back as she falls to her knees, scrambling to pick them up. He notes the darkness of her hair and eyes, as wide as a deer’s and framed by olive lids. He notes, as well, the color of the ankle-length dress she wears beneath her cardigan—pale pink—and the opal necklace draped across her collarbone.

Christopher drops to the floor by Mariana Álvarez, helping her gather her papers—or rather, photographs, as he sees now.

“Sorry,” he murmurs.

“It’s alright— ” Mariana looks up at him and stops, the photo in her hand fluttering from her grasp. “Christopher?” she breathes.

He manages a response, even with Laura’s voice bouncing off the walls in his mind. “Yeah.” Christopher gives her a small smile, reaching for the fallen photo. “Been a while, hasn’t it?”

“I…” Mariana starts. She, it appears, is struggling to manage the same. “I wasn’t expecting to run into you here…”

“Small world.”

Then he glances down at the photo and feels the blood rush out of his body.

Chapter Text

The last time Christopher spoke to Mariana Álvarez was in 9th grade. By then, she’d stopped sitting at his table during lunch, mostly because he no longer ate in the cafeteria. If he wasn’t skipping, he’d hide in either the bathroom or the library as a rejection of the lunch ladies’ slop and to avoid his high school bullies. They didn't care about the headliners, or the stupid money Christopher had been awarded by the town for the role he played in Will's arrest. What they saw was a boy whose faggot brother went missing and who was likely a fag himself—apparently it was genetic. They’d shove him into the schoolyard fence and hiss about how Will Thatcher would break out of prison just for him and finish the job. Make him disappear, too. What a day that would be.

Christopher was no stranger to bullying. He liked comic books and card collecting and sucked at every game in P.E. He still liked Star Wars even though it wasn't cool to like it after seventh grade. He couldn't help but squeak back at them, making him a satisfactory target. A couple of his bullies were the little brothers of Jonah’s, so it made anthological sense that he was next in line.

The difference between the bullies in high school and the bullies in middle school was that the ones in middle school backed off as soon as Jonah appeared. For all the hell they raised behind his back, they’d turn to putty as soon as his shadow fell over them. Jonah was shaping up to have Rodney's height and girth—already strong from the work he did at the farm—and he’d perfected an aura of such disappointment from his years of experience as an older sibling that it would make even the worst sinner want to repent. Christopher’s tormentors would hightail it out of the area with cartoon-ish speed at the sight of him, especially if he was accompanied by Will (and he usually was).

Don’t listen to them , Christopher, Jonah told him one afternoon. They were tucked into a corner of the hayloft where Christopher preferred to hide whenever he was upset. They just like to talk crap—

‘Cause they’re full of shit, right?

Uh… Sure. I was gonna say something else…

Christopher had his knees up to his chest and his arms folded on top, upon which he had buried his face. I hate them.

I do, too. But they don’t matter.

They feel like they matter.

For now, yeah. But one day, they won't. Jonah rested his forearm on his knees, calm and certain. One day, you won't even remember their faces. You'll move on and they'll be stuck right where they are, still trying to make themselves feel big by making someone else feel small.

You sound like Mr. Cathing at those anti-bullying assemblies , Christopher had sniffled.

…Well, he says that kind of stuff for a reason. It's ‘cause it's true. And the things those guys say to you? They aren't.

But what if they are?

They aren't. Don't let some dumb kid who calls you a ‘butt-sniffer’ control your life, Chris. If you do… Well, you're kinda bringing whatever comes next onto yourself. At least let it be someone with better insults.

Christopher had looked up at him bitterly. Easy for you to say, Jonah, he’d cried. You don't get it. Nothin’ ever bothers you. It's not fair.

He’d promptly dropped his face back into his arms.

…That's not true, Christopher, Jonah had said a moment later. Hey, look at me. Chris, come on, look at me.

Christopher had shifted his head, just until he could see his brother and beams of the barn roof running diagonally in the corner of his eye.

Lots of things bother me , Jonah continued. Every day. Like, 76% of the time. I just try not to let it show ‘cause I don't want you or Mom or Dad to have to see that—especially you. I'm the example. I want you to look up to me.

I do look up to you…

That's exactly why. He seemed to think, as if shaping what he was about to say. I do have struggles. I’m not invincible, and neither are you. No one is.

What do you struggle with? Christopher asked shakily.

Jonah shook his head. That’s not important. Point is, I think the people able to push through are a lot stronger because of it. They’re stronger than any superhero.

…Stronger than Superman?

Stronger than Superman. Definitely.

Batman?

Maybe not him, but pretty close.

Christopher had chewed on this bit of wisdom before scooting closer to Jonah and curling up against his side, using the heel of his palm to clean his errant tears. Jonah put his arm around him and squeezed his arm.

And Christopher?

Yeah?

Don't swear again or I'm bleaching your mouth.

In high school, though, there was no Jonah to hide behind. No Will, either. The insults were getting worse, and the people who threw them were filling out considerably faster than he was.

Christopher knew what Jonah would’ve wanted him to do—be the bigger person—and there was a short period of time where he’d made an attempt to be that and succeeded. That period died when Jude Hicks (who happened to be Grace’s boyfriend at the time) taped inside Chirstopher’s locker a piece of paper with the words ‘DICK SUCKER’ and ‘better be careful! don't end up like jonah! ’ written on it in black and red marker. On the shelf below the sign was a pile of condoms that cascaded out as soon he opened the door.

Christopher had never been so humiliated in life. He had also never been so furious—not for himself, but for his brother. He turned to where Jude and his friends were cackling several lockers away, pushed through the throng of gathered kids, and punched him full in the mouth. He punched him again when he fell on his bottom, swearing, and again, when Grace screamed at Christopher to get off.

He was sent to the principal's office with red knuckles and Jude to the nurse’s with a broken nose, sobbing. Mr. Cathing was in a meeting, so Christopher had to sit in one of the uncomfortable blue-cushion chairs outside his door, the school secretary clacking away on her computer. He wasn't the only student there. Mariana was sitting a seat over from him, staring at his hands with saucer-sized eyes. As soon as the secretary left to use the bathroom, she switched chairs so she could be beside him.

What happened? she whispered, too concerned for her own good.

Christopher didn't look at her. He didn't speak. He kept his hands clasped and focused on the scuffed linoleum between his shoes. His heart was pounding, but he couldn't tell if it was from the fight or the anger or the shame or something else. It was a lot to keep track of.

Christopher? Mariana pressed, softer now.

I got in a fight with Jude.

Oh…

Mariana hesitated. Christopher was painfully aware of her squirming. He could imagine the way she was probably wringing her hands in her skirt, trying to decide what to say. She’d always been thoughtful—the kind of person who wanted to make things better, even when they weren't hers to fix.

He thought, at that moment, of a night in 1989, when he was ten years old. Jonah and Will were playing Evil Dead II in the living room and Christopher was secretly crouched by the stairs, watching along with them. It wasn't because he'd had any particular interest in the Evil Dead franchise, but because he hated being left out and the movie was rated R—a forbidden delicacy. He would go on to have nightmares about Ash Williams’s possessed right hand and how it moved against his will: attacking him, mocking him, and ultimately threatening to kill him. In an act of pure desperation, Ash severed the hand at his wrist with a chainsaw and replaced it with the chainsaw itself.

Christopher wouldn't say he'd ever been trapped in a cabin, or had one of his appendages possessed by demonic forces, but there was a foundation in the idea. A concept that could be multiplied and factored out. Someone in that room was Ash Williams, while someone was his possessed hand. Christopher was not Ash Williams.

He deserved it , she declared.

You shouldn't talk to me , he told her.

…What?

You heard me.

But… We're friends, she said, like there was nothing more simple in this world. There probably wasn't. Every red string Christopher had wound and every wall he'd constructed existed in his mind alone.

I know… I know I can be annoying sometimes, and I talk a lot and I'm not that funny and I’m not that interesting, but I want to be your friend, Christopher, she pressed, desperate. I want—  

Mr. Álvarez entered the room so he could take Mariana to her dentist appointment, cutting her off from whatever she'd been about to reveal. He looked once at the empty secretary’s desk, then at his daughter, and then at the boy to her right. His nostrils flared like a bull’s when he noticed the bloody knuckles. Christopher never got to learn exactly what she wanted.

Anyway, this—combined with his lunchroom absences—effectively severed his connection to Mariana’s free sugar cookies and Italian-style sandwiches for good, as well as the pleasure of her company. Now, as if his right to it has suddenly been reinstated, he waits outside the sheriff's station for her to emerge, hands in his jacket pockets and back pressed to the wall. He doesn’t know how long she’s in there for, but the moon is fat and gibbous and in the sky by the time she leaves. Her hair swishes gently back and forth along her back as she heads down the sidewalk, storefronts to her left and the cracked road to her right. She pauses at the stop sign at the four-way intersection and doesn’t hear him coming up next to her.

Christopher clears his throat. “Mariana,” he says, trying to hide his uncertainty with the kind of false confidence that tends to land him the girls he uses it on.

Mariana startles, but only a little. Her head swivels toward him and she blinks, as if trying to blink away a phantom.

“…Christopher,” she replies, sounding a bit strangled. “What are you still doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

Mariana looks back at the road, left and right. A folder is cradled in her arms and a purse accentuated with pastel flowers is slung across her chest. Christopher follows as she crosses to the other side.

“I had to speak to Sheriff Tate about something,” she says coolly.

“About what?”

She stops suddenly in the middle of the empty road. Christopher almost rams into her for the second time that night. Mariana spins around and narrows her eyes at him.

“Excuse me?”

Christopher stares at her. “…About what?” he repeats.

Her eyes narrow further. She scoffs and resumes at the pace of a suburban mother on her morning power walk, passing Carrie’s Crazy Clips and Coldwater Grocer in rapid succession. The windows of each are lightless. Christopher struggles to catch up despite being one-and-a-half heads taller than her.

“Wait—I’m sorry, wait— ”

“That’s none of your business, Christopher,” she informs him. “That’s between me and the sheriff.”

“Mariana, wait— ”

“And I haven’t had a very good week, so if you’ll forgive me, I’d like this walk home to be quiet and peaceful— ”

“Who was that person?” He swings in front of her, forcing her stutter in her white Mary Janes. “The one in your photo?”

Mariana tenses like a cornered animal, hugging her folder tighter. “No one,” she says dismissively.

But it is someone, of that Christopher is certain. The last photo he’d picked up had been grainy and somewhat blurry and—just like the others, dark and pitch-black in some areas—but the treeline beckoning the silhouette of a man was unmistakable.

“You saw someone…” he deduces. “Going into the woods. Didn’t you?” Whoever it was had to have been suspicious enough for her to bring it to the sheriff. Why else would she be so on-edge, or here so late at night?

“I have to get home,” Mariana says. She shoulders past him. Christopher stands there for a time before he gives chase, a stranger to this version of Mariana—a version that doesn’t hang on his every word.

“Mariana, please— ” he pleads. “Do you know something? Something related to Danny Ruiz? Anything at all? Because if you do—If you do, I need to know— ”

She whirls on him in front of the drugstore, the lone establishment still open. A fire flares bright in her black eyes. Christopher’s mouth snaps closed.

“No, Christopher,” she tells him. “You don’t need to know anything—not about me or anything happening in my life. We’re not friends, remember?” Mariana's attention drags from his head to his feet and up again, frigid and examining. She turns and continues on her way and does not spare him another glance. “You shouldn’t talk to me.”

He doesn’t try to follow her.

Chapter Text

Clouds rolled in on Coldwater that morning, slick and gray with incoming rain. Christopher gave Sally her Sertraline and B12 and iron supplements. He made Kraft Macaroni and Cheese for lunch and tried harder than he ever had in his two years of employment at Harland’s Auto & Diesel not to blow a blood vessel. Ed has been hounding him since the incident with the TV channel, singling him out for the worst jobs and taking each opportunity to slander him as it comes. Christopher’s thoughts rotate on a spit, and the one with the deepest charr is Mariana's photo. He arrives at practice barely able to keep his eyes open, having tossed and turned sleeplessly over conspiracies of the shadow and the man in the treeline as soon as he got in bed.

“Christopher fumbling a girl?” Wes asks, sounding a husk of himself. “This world really is going fucking insane…”

“I wasn’t hitting on her,” Christopher says, voice muffled into the cushion of Avery’s crusty college couch. “She has something I need to know.”

“What?” Wes asks drily. “The color of her bra?”

Simon snorts, as if he wants to find it funny but can’t muster the muscles necessary for laughing.

Christopher’s head shoots up and he glares at them murderously. “Don't talk about her like that.”

“Okay, okay, jeez…” Wes screws his face. “That was supposed to be a jab directed at you, but fine… Didn't think you cared, Danny 2.0…”

The mention of Danny sucks the air right back out of the garage. Christopher burrows his head back into the couch cushions, listening to a string of distorted notes from Wes’s guitar. ‘Eclipsed,’ Christopher recognizes. One of Jonah’s more melancholic pieces, written in B minor and soft, haunting guitar arpeggios, embellished with reverb and delay.

“She had this picture…” he goes on. “She dropped it and I picked it up and I saw what was on it, and there was this—this man , and he was going into the woods, and I feel like— ”

“English, please,” Simon says.

Christopher looks up again. Simon is cross-legged on the floor by his drumkit, eyes rimmed not only by his square glasses, but a pair of shadows. Wes is on his feet and fiddling with his Jazzmaster in his usual spot—he can’t stay sitting for too long unless Al Pacino is somewhere in the vicinity.

“…You know I went looking for Jonah,” Christopher wonders. “Back when he went missing?”

“You mean your greatest feat of idiocy?” Simon asks. “Yes, we know.”

“And there was this guy who was chasing me?”

“Yeah,” Wes attests.

“I think it might be the same man in her photo. It’s got to have something to do with Danny.”

He isn’t lost on the glance Simon and Wes exchange with each other. Christopher realizes in the half-second of its duration how this conversation is going to go.

“It could be just a hunter,” Wes says.

“Deer hunting is illegal at night.”

Wes shrugs. “Maybe he was going for a mountain lion or something.”

“There are no mountain lions in Coldwater.”

“Actually?”

“Yes.”

“…Damn, okay… The more you know…”

“A mountain lion in Coldwater, Wes? Seriously? When have you ever even seen a mountain around here?”

“I’ve seen some mountain-like structures— ”

“Those are called hills, Wes. Hills. There’s nothing here but cornfields, woods, and hills.”

“Whatever.” Wes turns in a circle, thinking. “Maybe he was taking a walk.”

“This is ridiculous.”

“What?! I’m just listing out some possibilities… You know, before we jump to conclusions and accidentally condemn an innocent man.”

“Christopher…” Simon starts. “We don’t know where Danny went.”

“Yeah,” Christopher grits out. “I’m aware.”

“Which doesn’t automatically mean he’s in the woods.”

Christopher pushes up from the couch and stands by the armrest, balling his hands. “Where else could he be, Si? Honestly? Because he’s not anywhere else in this shithole.”

Simon closes his eyes for a moment. “Let's just—keep calm and think rationally for a couple seconds.”

“Alright,” Christopher agrees. “I am rationally thinking that it makes no sense for Mariana Álvarez to show the sheriff a photo of a random guy she randomly decided to take.”

Wes hums. “Well, when you say it out loud like that…” he contemplates. “It does sound weird.”

Christopher gestures at Wes while looking at Simon. “See? Wes agrees.”

“Hold on,” Wes interjects. “I’m not fully on-board with this theory of yours yet. I still think there could be other explanations.”

“Like what?” Christopher demands. “Besides hunting mountain lions.”

Wes shoves his tongue in his cheek. “Like…”

“Like you being paranoid,” Simon butts in.

“You two are just like Laura, I swear… ” Christopher runs his hands over his face. His bridge piercing scratches his rough palms. “I am not being paranoid. I can’t be the only one who sees what’s going on right now.”

“Okay!” Simon says abruptly, his drumsticks piercing the air as he throws his hands up. “Okay! Fine! Let’s assume you’re right. A creepy guy in the woods at night. Mariana takes a picture of him for whatever reason—probably because he’s creepy. She goes to the sheriff about it—the highest level of law enforcement in Coldwater.”

Christopher peeks at him through his fingers as he drags his hands down. “Yeah…”

“So what I’m hearing is that we don’t have to get ourselves involved.” He crosses his arms, muscles bunching. “Sheriff Tate will handle it. We can continue to look in town for now and stay out of her way. And…” Something in him appears to puncture. “If there’s a search party, then I guess we’ll join that.”

They hold an interminable silence, all of them looking at the cement padding their shoes—Christopher’s outmoded, off-brand boots and Simon’s Nike Air Max Huarache and Wes’s All Star Converse. Wes sighs, pulling off his Jazzmaster and stabbing it onto its stand. He announces that he’s going for a walk—that he needs some air.

“You shouldn’t go alone,” Simon says immediately, getting off the floor. “I’ll come with you.”

“Sure,” he says dispassionately.

They head for the door leading into Avery’s house, but languish when they notice Christopher isn’t at their heels.

“You coming, Chris?” Simon asks.

Christopher shakes his head. “No… I should… I should probably get home. My dad’ll kill me if I’m late again.”

“You sure?”

“Uh-huh.”

It isn’t a complete lie. Rodney will kill him if he’s home before Christopher and Christopher isn’t back by 11 P.M. He’d blown a gasket the day after Jayden’s party, when Christopher slunk into the house on the coattails of sunset after a vigorous Scrabble tournament with Laura and dinner at The Burger Bar, a diner on Main Street (her treat).

In truth, Christopher is thinking of Mariana's photo, tracing the exact outline of the trees from his fading memory and fitting it onto the outlines of the woods that are already mapped in his mind.

Wes and Simon share another glance. They’ve been doing that quite a lot recently. If Christopher wasn’t currently preoccupied, he would be bothered by it, but he is, so he hardly hears them voice their goodbyes, nor the tenuous thud of the door as it shuts in their wake.

Chapter Text

The news is vicious. Watching it gives the same sensation as a stick rooting in an open wound, drawing offal and unpacking tissue. Danny Ruiz smiles like a drunkard in his school picture—a mirror into the type of man he might've grown into. His hair is a long, dark curtain, parted to reveal the pale oval of his face and the gray flecks of his eyes.

“No updates so far in regards to Ruiz's whereabouts, but law enforcement is determined not to allow this case to become a repeat of— ”

He grabs the remote from the folding table by his couch and presses the power button. The screen flicks to black—cutting off the horrible drone of the newscaster—but it brings him no comfort. The tickle lingering in his throat from earlier that day rises mercilessly; he takes a used Kleenex from the armchair to cushion the cries of his lungs. It comes away silver with spit and drops of blood.

He exhales tremulously. He is no good man and no good man is him. Bed, he thinks. It's time for bed.

It hurts to brush his teeth—it hurts to do everything—but he does it, anyhow, and shuts off the lights and shuffles with bare feet to his barren room, not enough alcohol in his system to quiet the rampage of his thoughts. His joints scream as he lifts the unwashed sheets and crawls into his cold cocoon. He switches on the lamp on his bedside table, washing out the brown of the Bible on his bedside. He reaches for it, choosing at random one of the many passages he has bookmarked.

Job 18:5-7. The lamp of the wicked is snuffed out; the flame of his fire stops burning. The light in his tent becomes dark; the lamp beside him goes out. The vigor of his step is weakened; his own schemes throw him down.

He swallows. Dry spit scrapes the tunnel of his esophagus. Tonight, he sees, it is judgment.

His eyes flutter shut. He lowers his head and closes his Bible, setting it back on the bedside table. He claps his hands and words are drawn from the trenches of his soul, from that afternoon with the sun in the boy’s hair and all that was perfect in the world captured in the curve of his smile—the good he has never been able to see in himself reflected on the boy’s enamel.

“Lord, I don't know if You still listen to men like me,” he whispers. The words scald his tongue. “I have done things I cannot take back, things that stain my hands, my body, my soul. I have sinned against You, against others, against my own flesh. And I am afraid. I read Your Word, and I see the fire, the judgment, the wailing of the condemned. I see their faces, their suffering. And I wonder… Is that what awaits me?”

He shivers. He has not felt warm in a long, long time.

“But I also read of Your mercy, of sinners made clean, of debts forgiven. You healed the lepers, You sat with the broken, You pardoned the thief as he hung dying. Am I beyond that? Am I beyond you?”

The boy flashes in his mind—prisms of sunlight and rectangular hallways.

“If there is still room for me, if there is still grace, I beg You—see me now. Not as I was, not as I am, but as something that might yet be redeemed. If I must die, let it not be in fear. If I must answer for what I’ve done, let there be something left of me that can still be saved. But if I am lost, if there is no place for me in Your kingdom, then do not let me linger. Let it be quick, Lord. Let it be over soon.”

He digs his nails into his flesh. He knows he will dream of Jonah tonight, as he has every night for the last seven years. He will see the joy and the terror on his face as he is forsaken. But Jonah will not scream. He never screamed. He did not even allow himself to cry. He cannot help but think of Danny, too, and how he is lost. He seemed the type to cry.

He unfolds his hands and sinks into his mattress.

“Amen.”

Chapter Text

There are many miles of open country and dirt roads that lace around Coldwater. The town itself is modest in size, its layout dictated more by the lazy sprawl of settlement over decades than by deliberate planning. Branching out from the hoary mom-and-pop shops of Main Street are blocks of wide, green-fingered yards; gravel driveways; and coppering mailboxes tilted at odd angles. A number of them belong to the alien echelon of middle-class orderliness, while an equal number have been abandoned, their windows boarded up or shattered, roofs sagging under the weight of neglect and the attention of bored teenagers. Positioned eastward and westward of this conflagration—respectively—is the Coldwater Public School and Harland's Auto & Diesel.

The further one moves from town, the more the landscape shifts. Paved roads dust into narrow gravel paths, winding through fields of tall, wind-swept stalks and past old farmsteads, many of which have stood for generations. Some are still in use, their barns deep red and silos tall against the flaxen autumn sky. The rest have been left to rot, their wooden frames overtaken by weeds and creeping vines, waiting to collapse in on themselves and spit dirt into the eyes of God.

Past the farmland, the woods begin—dense, unyielding, and without beginning or end. Elongated oak and hickory trees form a canopy that blocks out much of the sunlight, their bodies bloated and knotted with age. Faded hunting signs are tattooed across certain stretches, warnings to trespassers that haven't been enforced in years. The greenery stretches for miles, its boundaries uncertain. Guileless country roads snake within, easily missed if one doesn't know where to look. They lead to either nowhere—dead ends swallowed by overgrowth—or to trails that have not been maintained.

It's one of these roads Christopher rides in the evening glow, moving solely by force of recollection. He passes the Dorsey farm and kills his Harley a mile out from the Cooper's, parked as close to the ditch as he can get without his bike tumbling over. He treks away from the road, toward the area of woods he was best able to match up with the photo. Attached to his belt is Rodney’s Smith and Wesson Model 10. He doesn't expect to use it, but in case something happens, he wants to be prepared. He knows how to wield it now, unlike back then.

Christopher stops a little ways away from the treeline. Branches claw desperately, beckoning him into their thorny embrace. He steels himself, calling upon confidence to arm him with an iron will. He could wait for Laura, and wait to join the search party that'll soon be sent out, but there’s a premonition in him that rings of Octobers long lost and it will not settle. He hasn’t the faintest idea what the chances are that he’ll discover anything inside. Christopher could leave with nothing more than what he possessed before he arrived, or he could leave with every answer he has yearned for all these years. It likely won’t be the latter, but he hopes for it sincerely. He would lap up even the smallest of clues.

Christopher’s given up on being the kind of person who can wait. He has to be moving or he'll lose all direction entirely.

Christopher breathes in deep and out deeper. He lifts a foot, then the other, and cycles through the motions several more times until he’s crossing the imaginary borders of truncated brambles.

Chapter Text

Mariana is lost. She has been from the moment she stepped into the woods—before that, even. The trees yawn to her right and left—behind and in front of her—wide, black, and toothless maws, waiting patiently to swallow her whole. One more wrong step on top of the thousands she’s made in the last hour, and she won’t be able to find her way out again.

She stops in a little clearing as night stitches itself over the country and twists cool air through the shadows. Mariana sniffles, wrapping her arms around herself and thanking the Lord for giving her the foresight to bring a coat as she prays for escape. Summer’s quickly shed its heat for the chill of late-season months and she resents it dearly.

It had been a daunting plan—venturing into the woods alone—but it hadn't seemed quite so impossible, either. She's only been in here once before, when her father took her and her sister out on what he claimed would be a great adventure in their girlhood. Mariana hadn't enjoyed herself at all during that trip—she’d had to keep slapping at the June mosquitos that landed on her legs and pull repeatedly at the tank top she was wearing, soaked through with sweat from the humid atmosphere. After what seemed like hours of walking (but hadn't yet been 20 minutes), she was certain that they were lost and would never find their way out. Her mother wouldn't realize they were missing in time and they would die there, slowly losing their grip on reality as water rations ran dry and eventually being forced to resort to cannibalism, like the people in that dreadful story about the Oregon Trail. Most torturously, however, was that she would never be able to kiss Christopher Henris—who she'd been paired with for a science project and couldn't seem to get off her mind—or even have the chance to be his friend.

Somehow her father led them right back out to where they'd parked their car. He'd laughed at the way she and Sofia ran to it, begging him to unlock the door—called them his little princesses, as if there was nothing else they should be.

There aren’t mosquitoes for her to slap now, or notions of having to turn cannibalistic, or fears of never being able to kiss Christopher Henris. She isn't nine-years-old anymore. But the woods, for reasons unbeknownst to her, are just as childishly horrifying as they'd been in 1989.

Mariana leans against the nearest tree, digging her pink nails into a groove in the bark, and looks around her. She can barely see 10 feet ahead, and the realization sprouts panic.

What am I really doing here? she wonders. She'd gone in with the intention of finding the man from the night of Jayden's party, knowing in heart that something about him was wrong—wrong in unholy ways. She'd come across him during a walk down country roads Christopher showed her years ago, the camera her mother had gifted for her fifteenth birthday in hand. She'd been tailing him since she saw him leave the store, hoping to capture something that would prove him either innocent or guilty, like the other men she'd been following this year.

Mariana had lost him for a bit before she ran into Christopher. He'd been drunk, clearly, and stumbling about aimlessly while high on some other substance, and the sight of him had made her heart leap, twisting it painfully into knots—she feared it always would. His safety had taken precedence over the man and she called the sheriff, who offered to take Mariana home and seemed troubled when met with a refusal. Mariana assured her she was fine and out with intention, taking pictures of the town.

It has a soul of its own, you know … she’d explained. It's so alive at night in a way it isn't during the day. The sky, the… fences, the…

A sharp moo pierced the night, followed by the stench of cow dung.

The… cows. I just… wanted to capture that beauty.

Sheriff Tate had looked at her blankly. Christopher was lolled against her side and muttering something about trees, half-unconscious. She did not own a camera high-definition enough to accurately depict anything she'd listed.

…It's for a school project.

Didn't you graduate last year?

Mariana had nothing to say to that. She continued in the direction she'd last seen the man go after a gentle reminder from the sheriff not to stay out too late, walking for a long while. She'd feared she had lost him for good before the swish of crumpling grass scratched at her ears, signaling she was in his vicinity and that he was no longer on the road. She caught his silhouette approaching a mass of wilderness in the distance and dared not go after. Instead, she raised her camera and took as many pictures as she could. Most were useless because she couldn't turn on her flash; they revealed nothing of his identity, only that he may have existed.

She hadn't bothered showing them to Sheriff Tate until the boy went missing. Given the circumstances, Tate had found the photos highly suspicious and razed the area with Deputy Lynn. They returned from their search empty-handed—Lynn chalked the man up to be a hunter or a local farmer, while Tate was still on edge.

When the search party heads out tomorrow , she promised Mariana, we'll continue looking for him .

Mariana had tried to content herself with that knowledge, but it was worthless. She didn't care how close tomorrow was—it would forever be too far off. If that man was somehow connected to troubles plaguing this town, then something had to be done as soon as possible—not just for Danny Ruiz, but for Sofia. Her parents would never allow her to join the search, anyway. She took a hunting knife from the shed—burdened by the knowledge that she had never held it in her life—and an old trail map. It wasn't her intention to face the man himself, but if there was anything she could find that would point to his capture, then she would chase it. The beads of the rosary she’d found taped to the window of Sofia's room were ice in her hand, and as she rolled them between the pads of her fingers, she told herself she could not let anyone harm her sister.

Mariana had left at 4:30 P.M. Night has fallen, and she is left at an impasse. Which path of lightlessness does she choose? Should she try to find her way out, or should she continue to look for the man? She shuts her eyes, her heart starting to pound.

A sound: the crunch of disturbed soil and distended leaves. Mariana jumps, clutching the tree tighter. The crunching continues—distant, but closing in on her left. She shifts to the other side of the tree—pulse violent in her ears—and unsheathes her hunting knife with shaking hands. As long as he doesn't see her and she sees him, her foolishness will have amounted to something.

The footsteps stop. Mariana holds her breath. A voice chases her, sudden and harsh and unexpected.

“I know you're there,” he says—and it is a man, but not the one she was anticipating. “Come out.”

Mariana peeks around the trunk, her grip on the knife handle no less loose.

“…Christopher?” she asks.

Christopher’s eyebrows shoot up, the gun in his hand pointing from her to the ground instantaneously. He flips on a Maglite, keeping it aimed away from her face. “Mariana? What are you doing here?”

She stays behind the tree and throws his words back at him. “I could ask you the same thing.”

Christopher’s expression morphs from shock to confusion to something unreadable. Disappointment? Worry? Suspicion?

“I'm looking for someone,” he says coolly.

“Really?” Her heart is still pounding. “Because I also happen to be looking for someone.”

His eyes narrow. “Funny coincidence.”

“Hilarious.”

Christopher smiles at her thinly. “I'll leave you to it, then.”

“Good luck finding your person.”

He continues the way he came, only making it a few paces. Mariana isn't able to question the decision of letting him leave before he turns back around and asks if she's lost.

“No,” Mariana lies, and finally removes herself from behind the tree. She's not sure if she trusts him completely yet, but if he's going to kill her, now would be the time to do it.

“You are, aren't you?”

“Just like a man,” she huffs, just to be argumentative. Her old anger at him is brewing to the surface, just the way it did when he made his demands outside the sheriff's office. “To immediately assume a woman is lost.”

“What? No, that's not what I… ” His eyes flicker down to her knife. “What do you have that for?”

“The same reason you probably have that gun,” she says, trying to stay as quiet as possible while accurately reflecting her feelings. “Self-defense. Unless you're using it for some other purpose.”

“It's for self-defense,” he replies drolly. Christopher breathes in deeply, looking aside. She pictures him massaging the back of his neck if his hands weren't preoccupied. “Do you… want to come with me?”

Mariana eyes him. “No,” she lies again. “Not particularly.”

“It's not safe to be out here alone.”

“And it's safer with you?”

“I’m the one with the gun instead of a kitchen knife so… Yeah. I'd say it is.”

Mariana glares at him. “This isn't a kitchen knife,” she argues. “It's for hunting.”

“That’s a kitchen knife. Hunting knives have curved blades.”

She had not known that. “It’ll still get the job done.”

The flattening of Christopher’s mouth reflects his thinning patience. “A gun provides better protection.”

“I don't want protection, Christopher,” Mariana snaps. She'll beg God to forgive her falsehoods later. “Not from you or your gun.”

She marches in the opposite direction.

“Wait!” Christopher swears unintelligibly. “Mariana, wait, stop—this isn't a good idea.”

“I don't think you have a single clue what a good idea is, seeing as you're in here, too.”

He catches up and falls into step beside her. “So you admit this is a bad idea?”

“I admit that you're stupid.”

“How long have you been in here?”

“Not long.” Fourth lie.

“Are you looking for that man? The one in that photo?”

“I’m not playing 20 Questions with you.”

Christopher moves abruptly in front of her, cutting off the unmarked path like a spikey road block.

Mariana scoffs. “What are you doing?”

“Mariana, you need to go home,” he says resolutely.

“You can't tell me what to do,” she snaps. “Stop acting like you own me.”

Christopher makes a sound of frustration. “Stop twisting my words! I’m just concerned— ”

“Why? Honestly? You shouldn't even be talking to me right now.”

Mariana tries to shoulder past him, but he shuffles into her way.

“Can you please stop bringing that up?” he pleads. “It was years ago and it was dumb and— ”

“It isn't years ago for me, Christopher,” Mariana objects. “You can't just brush things off like that and expect me to agree!”

“I'm not!”

“You are! Now would you please move — ”

She shoves him in the chest with little force, partly because she doesn't mean to hurt him but mostly because she has no strength of her own in comparison. Christopher steps back—more from surprise and than anything else—and crushes something under his boot. They both freeze at the audible crunch, glancing at the ground. It isn't the brittle snap of a twig or the crush of dead leaves—it’s sharper than that, like shattered glass.

Mariana snatches her hands away from Christopher’s chest as if burned. He doesn't appear to notice the delay, already bending over to unearth the source of the noise. Christopher holds it up for them to examine under the Maglite, his touch almost reverent.

“A crucifix…” Mariana murmurs.

It's well-made, hewn of dark, varnished wood. A glass Jesus hangs in the center, cracked across the torso from the pressure of Christopher’s foot. Etched into the back is some sort of symbol—a Chi-Rho, if Mariana were to guess. It's a bit too crude for her to know for sure, but what else could it be?

The air is squeezed from her lungs.

A rosary. A crucifix. A Chi-Rho.

“…Did you drop this?” Christopher asks, though he seems to be doing so just to rule the possibility out.

“No…” she answers faintly.

“Someone else has to have been here before us…” he ponders. “Lots of people. It could be anyone's. Who knows how long it's been here?”

They look at each other, and she knows, at that moment, that he believes it's mere coincidence as much as she does.

Chapter Text

It takes them a quarter of an hour to stumble into a liminal space separating the liverless trees from rows of unharvested crops, which Christopher determines to be soybeans once they've come closer. The nearest farm that grows those would be the Coopers. Another ten minutes or so, and they reach his Harley.

“You can get on the back,” he tells her, throwing his leg over the side.

Mariana's eyes are wider than usual. Her hair is a tangled mess. The kitchen knife hangs limply at her side, jammed into a leather sheath. In her other hand is the crucifix. She had told him on their way out that she’d entered the woods on foot through the copse nearest her house. She'd been wandering in there for a long time. They'd agreed to take a break to discuss their suspicions, then lapsed into unsettled silence, only speaking when Christopher would ask to look at her map.

“Are you sure?” she wonders. Her ire from before has been tempered.

Christopher nods. She climbs onto the back, grabbing uncertainly at his shoulders.

“Around my waist,” he tells her. “Hold on tight.”

Her arms snake around his middle. He asks her one more time if she's certain she wants to go to his house.

“Yes,” she says, and her breath warm on his neck. “I told my parents I was staying at a friend's house before I left.”

The farm is still as death when they arrive. His parents are in bed. He holds the door for Mariana and she slips inside, her head roving from the entryway where she stands to the leaky faucet in the kitchen to the husk of a living room, drinking in every detail. He tells her not to leave her shoes by the door and tells her to be as quiet as possible. She has to be gone before 5 A.M., when Rodney gets up if he goes to bed early. They take the stairs one at a time—perilously slow—and slither softly into his bedroom. Christopher heads immediately for his desk while Mariana stands awkwardly by the door.

“You can sit anywhere,” he says absentmindedly, shifting through a stack of weathered notebooks. By anywhere, he means his unmade bed. Mariana stares at it in a vague approximation of disbelief, unlaces her dirty sneakers, and shuffles across the hardwood in a pair of frilly socks, perching stiff-backed on the edge.

“Sorry,” he mutters. “Don't have much for seating.”

“It's fi— ” She clears her throat. “It's fine.”

“So this crucifix— ” Christopher starts, pulling his seventh grade Social Studies notebook out. “You think you might know who it belongs to?”

“Yes,” Mariana replies. The hesitation leaves her voice, replaced by resolve. “Before I left this afternoon, I found a rosary taped to the window of my sister's room. Maybe they aren't connected at all, but…” She wraps her arms around herself. “It doesn't feel right to find both a rosary and a crucifix on the same day.”

Christopher flips rapidly through his notebook, frowning. “Your sister?”

Mariana nods, biting her lip. “I think she has a stalker, and I think it was him who left it. It has to have been.”

Christopher lowers his notebook. “A stalker? Who?”

“I don't know who he is, just that he was probably someone in her class back in high school. I’ve always thought of him as a man, but it really could be anyone…”

Christopher glances up and sees her looking at his wall. He returns to flipping.

“Probably a man,” he agrees.

“Why do you think?”

“Why do you want to know what I think?” he asks, somewhat humored.

“Just curious,” she says smoothly.

“I think we can both agree women aren't usually half as creepy as men when it comes to stuff like this,” Christopher says. “She’d probably have a better experience if she attracted the only lesbian in Coldwater.”

That gets Mariana to smile, albeit wanely. It provides a necessary buffer to the suffocating atmosphere of the conversation.

“He used to leave gifts in her locker,” she continues. “Lots of them. They were innocent at first… Little poems, drawings, toy rings—things like that. But they got stranger over time. A paper cross made out of—of Bible pages, and prayer cards, and— ”

Mariana takes a deep breath in. “‘You could learn from the repentance,’” she quotes. “‘So serene, so unspoiled.’ He wrote that on one of his notes. I’ve never been able to forget. It… It's not right.”

“Crosses…” Christopher murmurs. “Crucifixes, repentance… It's too much to be a coincidence.”

He crosses the room to sit with her on the bed, digging his pencil tip into an empty page. He starts scribbling the information down.

“Did you ever tell anyone? Your parents? The police?”

“No, not then…” Mariana says reluctantly. “The gifts… They just stopped one day—randomly, a little less than a year before she graduated. Nothing ever showed up again until now.” She twists a ring with a pink jewel heart around her finger. “Sofia was embarrassed. She thought someone was pranking her and didn't want to make a big deal out of it, and since she left for college shortly after, there wouldn’t have been any more opportunities for gifts, anyway…”

“She's back in town now, though? Permanently? Not just visiting?”

“Yes. She came back this summer to live with my family for a while.”

“And it's started up again?”

“I think so. It’s only the rosary so far, but I know it's him. There's no one else it could be.”

Christopher’s pencil stalls. “That one time my mom and I had Thanksgiving with your family… You said Sofia had a secret admirer. Right? They left flowers in her locker?”

Mariana nods. “Lilies. From him.”

“So either this guy had a change of heart for a couple years or he's been biding his time, waiting. You're sure the rosary was taped outside her room?”

“I'm sure.” Mariana folds her arms tighter. “It wasn't on the front door, or by the kitchen—it was her place, like he knew. And even if it was somewhere else on the house, it'd still be strange.”

A quiet coils in the sliver of space separating them. Outside, the 12 A.M. sky is drenched in stars, its spangled light pressing against the thin glass of the window.

“The man you saw in my photo…” Mariana offers. “He was idling outside the vet clinic on September 26—the place where my sister works. He wasn't there long, but… I can't help but be suspicious of everyone now. I thought the stalker could be him.”

“The night of Jayden’s party.”

“Yes, it was that night. I followed him as soon as he was far enough down the street that I didn't think he would notice. I had to stay really far behind—and I did end up losing him for a bit, so I don't know what he was doing during that time—but I found him again and managed to get a few pictures by the woods.”

“Lost him?” Christopher asks. “Did you have to fall back or something?”

Mariana looks down from him, directing her attention to her hands. “No…” she murmurs. “I just… I ran into you.”

Christopher blinks, remembering the afternoon he'd sat with Laura in her yard as he wrestled a hangover.

“The guardian angel…” he says, invoking Laura. “That was you?”

Mariana’s brows draw together. “What?”

Christopher curses himself for having such a big mouth. “Nothing, just—Is there anything about his appearance you remember? Anything at all?”

“I never got a good look at his face, but he was in a navy jacket—you know that kind with the puffy sleeves— ” 

“A bomber jacket?”

She nods.“And a baseball cap. And a pair of blue jeans. He seemed tall, but most people are to me.”

“And what day did you find the rosary? Do you remember?”

“Yesterday.”

Christopher notes this in a separate section of the page. “So,” he recounts, getting up from the bed and approaching the calendar pinned to his evidence wall. He flips it back to September and grabs a marker from his desk. “Your sister has a high school stalker. A couple months after she moves back to Coldwater, he starts watching her again. Danny is believed to have gone missing the night of September 26 since that was the last time he was seen.”

He marks the date. “On October 8, Sofia's stalker presumably leaves a rosary on her bedroom window—likely some sort of gift, if we're operating on his logic. Or maybe a warning.”

The color seeps from Mariana's face. “Right,” she mutters.

“We’re working with three different people: someone who might've done something to Danny, if whatever happened to him involved foul play; the man outside Sofia's workplace on the night of Danny's disappearance; and Sofia's stalker. That's what it seems like, at least— ”

“But they could all be one in the same,” Mariana finishes.

“Exactly.” Christopher caps his marker. He's written a short synopsis of events on each date of importance. “If the rosary is a warning and not a gift, then your sister could be the next person he's targeting.”

Mariana shakes her head in frustration. “But who ? Who would do all of this? And why?”

“I’m willing to bet he has some sort of religious motivation,” Christopher guesses. “Or is at least religious himself. Sofia's gifts, the crucifix… It's all Christian iconography. And he probably doesn't have an attraction to Sofia or anything like that if he's gone after Danny.”

Mariana purses her lips. “Hmmm… Danny was with you the night of Jayden's party, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I didn't see anyone else with you on that road, though.”

“He might not have wandered out with me…” Christopher says guiltily. “I don't remember anything that happened while we were there.”

“That’s alright…” Mariana assures in a tone that speaks hopelessly of the opposite. “We have enough to work off of, I think. It was someone from Sofia's class—or in high school at the same time as her—and they’re religious, so… They’d have to be in their twenties by now.”

They keep to themselves for a few seconds, thinking.

“The yearbook,” Christopher realizes. “I have the high school yearbook from 1991—everyone she went to high school with besides the 1992 freshmen will be listed in there.”

Christopher heads to the closet embedded in the wall by his dresser and throws the door open, rooting around the top shelf where he'd stuffed his brother's yearbook. He finds it wedged between a box of his trading cards and a box of his comics, hidden amongst other relics of an old life he's tried to distance himself from.

“You still have that?”

Christopher looks over his shoulder at Mariana, following her line of sight to the clothes rack shielded by his torso. Wrapped neatly around the neck of a hanger is a hand-knitted scarf, some of the patterns uneven but soft to the touch. The yarn is cornflower blue, woven in a garter stitch. Another relic, gifted to him by the girl on his bed.

“Why wouldn't I?” Christopher asks, and surprises himself with how mild he sounds.

“I thought you'd thrown it away,” she says softly.

He draws out the yearbook and blows the dust from its spine.

“And get rid of a perfectly good scarf?” he asks lightly. “Not my style.”

Mariana smiles as he shuts the closet and reclaims his spot beside her—the first she's given him in years. He keeps himself from staring by reading the yearbook’s index.

“It's not,” she says.

“What's not? My style?”

“A good scarf. But that, too.”

He gives her an odd look. “Alright,” he says, dramatic with a touch of hesitance. He turns to page seven. “Whatever you say…”

“It's not,” she insists, smile widening. “Really. I messed up so many times. You can see every little mistake.”

“I must be blind, then.”

“I think you’ve always been a little blind,” she says, going softer.

“I notice more than you think.”

She tilts her head slightly, examining. “Do you?”

“Mhm.”

“Only the things you want, maybe.”

“Maybe. But it kept me warm, whether I could see the mistakes or not. Here—the junior class.”

Mariana's eyes slide reluctantly from him to the yearbook. The juniors of 1991 peer at them from their school pictures, arranged in uniform lines across pages seven and eight. Sofia is the very first in the roster, her black hair cut off at the shoulders and silver eyeshadow bold.

“Bradley Rogers, Oscar Mills, Archer May…” Mariana reads, skipping over the girls. “I don't think any of these boys were really religious. I've never seen them at my church… How about yours?”

“I haven't been to mine in a while,” Christopher says. “But I recognize a couple.”

He explains that the Rogers sat in the pews at the very back and the Mays only came for Christmas and Easter services. Neither Bradley or Archer—nor anyone below the age of eighteen—had seemed particularly invested in the sermons. They look through the girls next—just to be safe—and run into more dead ends.

“Maybe it was someone from another class, then.”

Mariana flips back to the senior photos occupying pages two through six. Will and Jonah's are the only ones missing. Jonah has a two-page spread to himself on pages 13 and 14 that Christopher has memorized by heart. Any mention or indication of Will’s attendance at Coldwater Public School is so thoroughly avoided, it's like he never even existed. She reads off the names of both the boys and girls this time, from Marissa to Tanner to Mathew to Tyler and everyone in between.

Jonah talked enough about them that Christopher has an estimate on each of their levels of devoutness. Tyler is the highest, but Christopher doesn't know if he’s much of a fanatic, then or now. Whoever it is has done a good job of hiding their inclinations.

“Wait…” Christopher says, narrowing his eyes at the picture of Raymond O’Donoghue. He recalls his visit to Grand Green Apartments last Wednesday—the proverb on Raymond’s wall and the conversation they’d shared. Raymond still prays for Jonah, and he works with Reverend Cates at the nursing home, and he manages the landscaping at the Coldwater First Baptist Church. When Christopher left, Raymond had suggested that he give the Lord a second chance.

Never be afraid of accepting His grace again, he’d said, holding open the door to his home. He works in mysterious ways.

I’ll think about it, Christopher had replied.

Raymond had smiled. I only hope for peace in your life, Christopher. Forever and always.

His life revolves around his devotion to God. But Raymond, of all people? It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t seem possible, and yet…

Mariana looks at Christopher, concerned and anticipating. He grabs the notebook and writes the name of their first suspect.

Chapter Text

They fall into a truce as the night waxes into morning hours, airing out theories and concerns. They continue their list of potential suspects and explore the possibility of being completely off the mark, wiring together connections and opportunities no matter how far-fetched they first appear. Christopher tells Mariana about the shadow—the accomplice Will denied having in 1991—and how he thinks he might be Sofia’s stalker and Danny's kidnapper and the man at the edge of the woods.

They add Wayne Thatcher and the members of the Meridian Lodge to the list. Christopher hesitantly admits that he's considered Emilio Álvarez to be the accomplice in the past, which nearly destroys their truce.

“My dad would never,” Mariana protests. “He's not—He isn't like that at all!”

“I wanted to check off every possibility,” Christopher claims in defense. “I thought he was acting off at that Thanksgiving dinner and… I don't know. I figured it's better to be safe than sorry.”

He thinks of Will and adds, quietly, that he knows what it's like to want to believe in the best of people. Mariana presses her lips together in disapproval, but in the end, it's she who decides to add her father to the list, murmuring under her breath that he would hate Christopher even more for this if he knew.

So many identities for one entity, and so many faces he could have.

Though they've deduced the stalker to be religiously motivated, the exact reason why continues to evade them. If they're correct, his belief in God must be warped to the point that it’s unrecognizable.

“This kind of stuff only happens in Hollywood,” Mariana says despairingly. She's lost all pretense of formality, sitting cross-legged on his bed with her own notebook. Her elbows are on her knees and her fingers at her forehead, drawing taut the skin over her temples. “This is so…”

“Frustrating?” Christopher chimes from the floor, his back pressed to the bed and in a similar state of disarray. “Ridiculous? Insane?”

“Yes.”

“To what?”

“Everything.”

“We could just be showing our first signs of clinical psychosis,” he mutters.

“Both of us? At the same time?” Mariana ponders. “Unlikely, but possible.”

She sighs, falling onto her side on the mattress. It wheezes at the pressure. “I don't know what I want at this point—for us to be right or for us to actually be going mad.”

“Pick your poison,” Christopher says lamely. “I choose the chalice holding the poison. Whichever one's cooler-looking.”

“Is that an option?”

“It is now.”

He hears her roll onto her back and the hush of sheets as they shift along her body.

“This reminds me of those days you used to stay late at the library, and how I’d insist on joining…” Mariana reminisces. “It’s just like old times, kind of.”

Christopher tips his head back against the mattress. “You say that like you enjoyed it.”

Mariana hums. “I think it'd be wrong to say I did, but… I can't say I didn't, otherwise I wouldn't have been so pushy about keeping you company. And I'd be lying.”

Christopher momentarily forgets the shadow-stalker and their expanding list of suspects, stumbling instead through slogs of repressed memories.

“Yeah… It is, in a way. Feels nice to not have Mrs. Chapman drilling holes in the back of my skull, though.”

Mariana chuckles. “She was not.”

“She was .” Christopher cranes his neck to look at her over the edge of the bed. “That woman despised me. I mean, I'd get it if she does now, but back then? Seriously? She's just like your dad, apparently…”

“He doesn't hate you, he just… Hm… He’d need some time to warm up to you. That's all.”

“So he hates me, is what you're saying.”

Mariana turns her head to look him in the eye, her hands folded over her middle. A playful smile tugs at the corners of her lips. “He thinks you're a bad boy,” she says teasingly. “There's nothing he hates more than a boy who dresses in leather or black. Both is a no-no.”

Something thoughtful crosses her expression. She rolls onto her stomach, bringing them marginally closer—enough to see the amber sparks in her eyes. She smells like earth and sweat and a faint, unidentifiable sweetness.

“I suppose you are that, now.”

Christopher shifts so they're face-to-face. “Bad?” he asks. “Or a boy? I think I've grown out of that by now.”

“I don't think so,” she says, her voice low. “You have changed, though.”

“How?”

Her gaze flits from his browline to his cheekbones; his lips to his jaw. “A lot. I couldn’t name all the ways.” She speaks regretfully. “I don’t really know you anymore.”

Christopher traces her with his eyes the way she traced him, fitting the girl who used to sit by him at lunch to the girl in front of him. She’s molded into the contours of a woman, the planes of her face smooth and pale in the moonlight, elegantly tapering into edges he is yet unfamiliar with. Her lashes sweep her dewy skin. Her nose is narrow at the bridge and wider at the base. Every line of her, every motion, every word she speaks dredges up his ancient, festering guilt. He feels it blacken his being. He turns away at the same time she does.

“But I guess I’ve never really known you,” Mariana says. “I was just that one kid who followed you around everywhere.”

“No,” Christopher objects. “You were more than that.”

He digs his nail into the pink tissue of his pencil eraser. Mariana does not make a sound.

“You kept trying to be there for me, even when I was acting like a dumbass. I never had any friends until you forced your way in. I didn’t really show it back then—I was so distracted with other stuff—but I did appreciate it. I still do.”

He stops for a moment, contemplating.

“Not that I think you should’ve bothered… ” he continues. “I think it’s better not to get mixed up with me in general. But yeah.”

“…You’re such a man,” Mariana replies, all bark and no bite. “You make things so much more complicated than they need to be.”

“What?”

Mariana doesn’t elaborate. “Maybe we should play 20 Questions,” she proposes. “I’ll think of you and you think of me.”

He loosens his grip on his pencil. “Huh?”

“I’ll go first,” Mariana states. She closes her eyes, sifting through a long-forgotten version of him. “Are you… easily scared?”

Christopher lifts an eyebrow. “Like, in general? Or now?”

“That’s two questions.”

“Woah, okay, that’s not how it works— ”

She cracks an eye open. “Fine. In general.”

He considers. “I don’t think so. I used to scare more easily. Now I just expect bad things to happen,” he says half-jokingly. “Being scared’s a little redundant when you already assume the worst.”

“That’s bleak,” Mariana comments, not unkindly. “But I get it.”

“My turn.” Christopher straightens, resting an arm on the mattress. “What's the last thing you baked?”

“Ghost cookies.”

“Ghost?”

“I’m excited for Halloween. That’s your fifth question, by the way.”

“Can I ask another?”

She pretends to think, touching her knuckles to her chin in Thinker-like fashion. “Yes, you may ask your seventh.”

“Can I try one of your ghost cookies?”

“Perhaps. If my dad hasn’t eaten them already.”

“Aw.”

“Alright, it’s my turn now.” Her head falls to the side. “What’s the one place you’ve always wanted to visit?”

“Spain.”

“Actually?”

“You got me interested. Why are you staying in Coldwater?”

“What do you mean?”

“Now look who’s asking extra questions.”

He can hear the smile in her voice. “That’s not an answer.”

“I mean this town doesn’t really seem like your type of place. I can’t imagine you here long-term.”

“Says the one in a band. Shouldn’t you be in Seattle or something? It sounds like your type of place, from what I’ve heard.”

“Well, I’d prefer it to here. The question is about you , though, not me. I assumed you were going to university after graduation.”

“I thought about it,” Mariana admits. “I’d love to learn more, of course, but… Sofia was already going, and it seemed like so much money… I decided to just stay home for a while—help my parents out. I can always go later on, anyway.”

“Do you still dream of owning a café? And a flower shop? And a book shop?”

“You’re running out of questions. And it’s my turn, you know.”

“Indulge me.”

“I do, yes. It’s silly.”

“Nothing wrong with silly. It sounds nice, personally.”

Mariana makes a contented noise. “What about you? What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Christopher grins. “I’m already grown-up.”

“19 isn’t so grown-up. That’s what my parents say, at least.”

“I'm already something, then,” he decides. “A musician.”

“Is that what you've always wanted to be?”

Yes , Christopher is about to say, before it occurs to him that it would technically be a lie. He’s pursued music through his teens and now into early adulthood; on the surface, becoming a musician was always the finish line he'd been working to cross—but not for himself. He practiced guitar so he could play Jonah's songs, he learned how to read sheet music so he could understand Jonah’s songs, he picked up singing so others could hear Jonah's songs and they would be forced to remember him and they would know how brilliant he was, even if his voice had been stolen.

Christopher’s talent is not innate, like his brother's was. Mr. Cotton once revealed to him—after much pressure—that it took Christopher a year to reach the same level Jonah was in little over half that time. The same current of inadequacy has threaded itself in Christopher’s efforts throughout the years, no matter how he's tried to keep pace. His talent is the result of bottling his frustration and bandaging his fingers, never being able to comprehend what makes his own pieces—or, in essence, the summation of himself—so lifeless when played side-by-side with Jonah's.

The truth is that he's nothing without his brother. He isn't a person if Jonah isn't also a part of him. He didn't get the chance to explore who he could have been. Christopher is the one with a pair of beating lungs, but Jonah has always been the air that keeps them pumping. And it is the truth, not an estimate or an approximation. Christopher knows, because if he was worth even half as much as his brother, his mom would have looked at him that day after the non-funeral of July 15, 1992 and remembered she has another son and that she used to love him, too—that he needs her still, more than ever. She would have left the door open, and his dad wouldn’t be trying to lock it. When Jonah left, he took all the keys in the world and left nothing for the people he abandoned, ensuring that no new futures could be opened besides the one his absence assured. It was a biblical greed, the kind that can only be perceived in such a way if the one committing the sin was the object of a biblical devotion.

“I don't know,” Christopher mumbles.

Mariana notices his change in tone and frowns, taking on an expression of worry. “Is something wrong?”

“No, no… I'm fine.” He gives her the most acceptable answer he can manage. “I can't think of anything else I've wanted to be.”

Christopher tugs at the spine of his notebook to bear the ensuing silence, about to suggest they get back to work when Mariana sits up in the bed, her attention on the evidence wall. Christopher observes her watching it, feeling somewhat like a cadaver pried open on a table. Simon and Wes are the only two outside his family that have seen this side of himself.

“You've never given up on him, have you?” she asks, her voice drenched in incredulity.

“Ignore that…” Christopher looks at his notebook. “I know it's stupid.”

“No!” she says quickly. It’s not stupid, it's… ” She leans forward. “Understandable. I’d probably be the same if something ever happened to my sister. We get on each other’s nerves all the time, but… I can't imagine my life without her. It'd be…”

She catches herself, peering down at Christopher. “Have you ever found anything?”

“Not really… I have ‘theories,’ about what might've happened to him, I guess, but they’ve never really amounted to much.”

Mariana looks again at the wall, less in awe and more in suspicion.

“Maybe they will now,” she wonders, and requests that he deal her his old hopes for analysis, to be dusted with a cloth and examined in the second-light of revelation.

Chapter Text

There are two victims they know for certain: Luanne Calloway and Jonah Henris. The other two are suspected or soon-to-be victims: Danny Ruiz and Sofia Álvarez. Were they picked at random, or is there a connection between the four of them? Christopher and Mariana settle across from one another on the floor and write each of the victims' names and significant information on separate sheets of paper, trying to find the areas they overlap. As soon as Christopher has divulged the last of his theories, Mariana’s brow screws in concentration. She puts her eraser to her lip and draws parallels.

“Luanne was pregnant at the time of her murder, correct?” she questions.

Christopher nods.

“And the police never found out who the father was?”

“Yeah.”

“She was seventeen—a teen pregnancy. Her stab wounds were mainly in her uterus and abdomen, which probably means that Will and whoever he was working with were specifically targeting the baby… Maybe because it was one of theirs. But if that’s true, that would technically make themselves sinful, seeing as Will had a girlfriend and—either way—it’s sex before marriage. That conflicts with their supposed theology.”

“I'm pretty sure murder does, too.”

“Right… They’d have to have some sort of twisted justification… I think they did choose specific people, but not because they wanted the thrill of harming someone else. I think they were trying to punish others for their wrongdoings—sins. Something like that.”

Mariana flips to Danny’s page, dragging her pencil down his list of facts. “Danny wasn’t— isn’t —Christian. He parties, drinks, does drugs… His behavior alone could be reason enough for him to be pursued."

“If that’s all it takes, then why haven’t I been taken?” Christopher mutters.

“Maybe they didn’t think you were as bad as him,” she considers. “Do you usually do that stuff on your own?”

He runs his tongue over his teeth. “I mean, I’m no saint, but it’s Danny who ropes me into it most of the time…”

“That might be why. The stalker could just think Danny is worse than the usual ‘riffraff’ in general. Or he knows something about him that we don’t.”

Christopher frowns. “And your sister?”

Mariana turns a shade hesitant. “Sofia…” she starts. “She used to be a lot like Danny. She'd sneak out to parties, never listen to our parents, hide weed in her room… And that’s not even the worst of it. She's done a lot of bad things. Mom and Dad even sent her to live with my aunt for a while. It was supposed to be a retreat or a place for reflection—something like that. She's changed a lot since then, but it could've been enough to put a target on her head back in high school.”

She turns to the last page. “What I don't know is why they would've gone after Jonah…” Mariana glances up at Christopher. “Unless that one theory of yours is true.”

Christopher runs a hand through his hair. He doesn't know what he thinks of that possibility and the myriad implications that come with it. If Mariana is right, however, and Jonah was gay, it would make sense that that was the reason. If his brother committed some other sin, Christopher has no idea what it could be.

“We should verify just to be sure.” He doesn’t believe Laura will be partial to listening unless they have more evidence to back themselves up. Besides the fact that she's already warned Christopher not to get involved, the whole concept of hunted sinners sounds so much like the plot of a movie or a book that he doesn't completely trust it himself. “Maybe look a little more into Danny’s past, too.”

“How?” Mariana wonders. “It’s not like we can ask them… Could they have diaries or something?”

The thought of Danny writing in a diary is so absurd it almost makes Christopher laugh, despite everything. He knows exactly what Danny would think of that.

“I don’t think Danny would've owned one,” he says. “But we could check. Jonah, on the other hand… The closest things he owned to a diary were his composition books. He didn’t put much in there besides music, though.”

Mariana’s brow is furrowed so deep it crinkles the skin of her forehead. “But if we think of them like diaries, then the songs themselves could function as entries .” She brightens. “They could tell us something!”

“But…” Christopher could sleep-recite every song Jonah concocted, beginning at the end and ending at the beginning. He’s tried to parse the meaning of them all, having dedicated an entire notebook to his musings. There aren’t any he can think of that would be particularly telling, or indicate a struggle with his identity. Some are vague enough they could be applied  to a vast array of situations, while others had contained explicitly religious themes. “Hm…”

He glances to the right, at the evidence wall and his bedside table and the composition book on top, DO NOT TOUCH!!! inscribed on the cover. Then he remembers.

I want you to stop.

I want you to stop.

I want you to stop.

I know you won’t stop.

Christopher shuffles across the floor and whips the book off the stand, opening it at the very end. Mariana crawls over to him, asking if it’s alright for her to take a peek. He nods. Her head hovers by his shoulder as she reads the page’s contents. She reads the date at the top—June 9, 1989—and whispers the lyrics to herself, so quiet that the words dip in and out of his hearing.

“Trace my hand along the echoes… Swallowed whole, spit back out… Left in silence, left in doubt…” Her lips form a grim line. “This sounds…”

“Troubled,” Christopher finishes.

“The whole page looks troubled,” she agrees.

“Something must have been going on when he wrote it.”

“Do you remember anything that was happening in his life during 1989?” Mariana probes. “Anything that might’ve resulted in… this?”

“If there was something troubling him, he didn’t tell me. He hid that kind of stuff,” Christopher answers, struggling not to seem bitter.

“He might’ve told someone else…” She resumes her Thinker pose. “Your parents?”

“No… Not them.”

Christopher drudges deep into his memory, as far back as he can go. Jonah wouldn’t have confided in his family, simply because it went against his untouchable nature. Will was probably the one who got to see Jonah at his most vulnerable, but they can’t visit him in prison on a whim and waste time asking questions he might refuse to answer. If he didn’t bring any of this to light back then, Christopher doesn’t imagine he’ll have changed his mind about it seven years later.

“There’s one person we could try…” he proposes, uncertain.

Mariana wrings her hands in her lap. “Who?”

“Richard Cotton—Rick.”

“The old music teacher?”

“Yeah.” Christopher shuts the composition book. “He taught Jonah how to play guitar and Danny the bass. Used to be his favorite teacher. They were pretty close, as far as mentors and students go. He could’ve been a safe person to confide in—not just for Jonah, but Danny, too. I wrote him off when I first started looking, but he’s our best lead.”

“You think he’ll talk to us?”

“I don’t know,” Christopher admits. “I haven’t spoken to him in a while. I think losing one of his students and just—everything else—took a toll on him… Don’t really see him around town anymore. I can't imagine Danny's disappearance is any easier on him.”

“Then we have to be careful,” Mariana says. “We can’t risk scaring him off.”

Outside, the wind picks up, tapping the shutters against the window in hollow knocks. The last time he checked the time, it was nearing 3 A.M. It’s likely past that now—closer to four. They’ve been up the whole night, and the realization steamrolls a fresh load of exhaustion over his body. It’s not purely physical, but mental and—in a way—even spiritual.

“You need to get home,” Christopher says, climbing tiredly off the hardwood. “I’ll take you. You can tell your parents Haylee thinks you snore too loud and kicked you out.”

“We’ll visit him tomorrow?” she questions as he helps her up.

Christopher nods. “Tomorrow.”

Chapter Text

Morning breaks muted and colorless over the right-hand corner of Missouri, the sun bleached by overcast skies. The snatches of sleep Christopher grasps provide miniscule respite. He dreams, again, of the shadow, as he has on and off since their acquaintance. In them, he is a pitiless mass of black in the shape of a man, but has no other physical markers. Tonight, however, he has a thousand identities. He's Raymond O’Donoghue, with a pair of thick black glasses and combed auburn hair. He's Wayne Thatcher, in a dashing suit and visage chiseled out of chilled marble. He's Emilio Álvarez, a mustachioed bulk hurling himself between tree trunks half his size as he chases Christopher into the early hours of morning. Dirt calcifies into pews and leaves stitch together in a patchwork of velvet carpet that leads him out of the woods.

They are now in the nave of a disproportionate church, himself near the altar and the shadow at the broken stitching of reality that separates the trees from God's holy temple. Red sunlight beams through open windows high above, dunking the shadow in blood. Christopher watches in horror as he rips his face away—exposing the risorius and platysma and a tanglement of severed veins—only for it to be replaced by another, and another, and another, cycling through the histories and motivations of men with nothing in common but what hides beneath their skin.

Christopher’s alarm wakes him with a gasp. He flings an arm out and smacks it off, folding himself further into the warmth of his blankets in an attempt to be rid of the cold that lingers after his nightmares. It only abates once he’s dressed and makes breakfast for his mom. She seems more tired than usual—typically a bad sign—and he makes a mental note of this as he’s buttoning his Harland's Auto & Diesel shirt and taking the stairs two at a time. Christopher nearly runs into Rodney when he sweeps the living room in search of his boots. He jolts to a stop, his limbs locking up and eyes darting to the ground, like a dog brought to heel. It makes him feel pathetic, but he knows no other way of functioning in the presence of his father anymore.

“Looking for something?” his dad asks, sounding as if he already knows the answer.

“My boots,” he says, quiet and plain enough that it won't seem like he's back-talking, but loud enough that Rodney won't demand him to repeat it.

“Moved them by the back door.”

“Thank you,” Christopher murmurs, and tries unsuccessfully to go around. Rodney steps in his way.

“Just didn't want them to get lost, you know… Seeing as you were all distracted with that girl last night.”

Christopher’s blood turns to ice. He doesn't look up from the floor. “What girl?”

“Don't play dumb with me, Chris. You're smarter than you like to act.”

“There was no girl— ”

“Don't lie to me, either. I'm tired of you lying. I know you were with one of those whores— ”

Christopher finally looks at his dad, furious. They're the same height, but he feels as small as when he was 12.

“Don't call her that,” he snaps.

“I knew it.” Rodney’s tone hardens. “You brought a stranger into my house, under my roof— ”

“She's not a stranger—she’s… ” He stalls. “She's a good person. She was helping me.”

“With what? Breaking all ten commandments?”

Christopher locks his jaw. Rodney scoffs, knocking their shoulders together as he ambles into the living room. “Too damn early for this,” he grumbles.

A quiet, unnamed fury quakes in Christopher, a fire bred in him at birth and fueled by the negative space barring him from the truth.

“I think we could find out what really happened to Jonah,” he says.

The house sucks in its breath. Christopher turns to see that Rodney is immobile in the middle of the room, stuck between the coffee table and the couch. The window is drawn shut, preventing natural light from smiting the last of the night’s embers.

“We know what happened to Jonah,” his dad refutes, devoid of inflection.

“I don't think we do,” Christopher insists. “Maybe Will was lying… Maybe we had it all wrong. Maybe— ”

“I don’t want to hear your fantasies,” Rodney interrupts, facing his son. He appears infinitely older than his years, black hair frayed with streaks of gray and the flesh of his cheeks cracked like leather—the kind of aging hastened by grief and its alcoholic remedials.

“It’s not a fantasy— ”

“I’ll tell you what happened to your brother.” He speaks as rich and low as ore deep in the earth’s core. “Will Thatcher shot him twice in the head. He burned what he could of the body and dumped the remains in the lake to feed the fishes. He’s dead.”

Listening to him is like a slap in the face. “You don’t believe that,” Christopher accuses.

“What reason would I have not to?” Rodney demands, on the cusp of humor. “Honestly? They found his backpack, they found his blood— ”

“It's not a body.”

“It might as well be!”

“You’re— ” He nearly chokes on his anger. “You're the one who used to tell me not to believe the things they said. ‘He’s out there and he's waiting for us.’ That's what you used to say. I remember.”

Rodney's nostrils flare, indecision warping his features. He smoothes the crown of his head with the flat of his palm and looks at the closed window unseeingly—a man staring down the barrel of something he's long tried to accept.

A minute passes. Christopher starts to think they've met the end of the conversation and poises himself to leave.

“I've seen men die all my life, Christopher,” his dad muses, gluing him in place. “My parents, my friend, the ones I tried to replace him with when I enlisted. I used to think there was some reason for it. Some balance to it all. Like if enough people died, maybe it meant something worse had been avoided—that God had a plan, and I was too small to see the big picture. And when Jonah— ”

He pauses. Christopher waits.

“When Jonah went missing,” Rodney continues. “I used to think the same thing. That there had to be a reason, even though it made no fucking sense to me anymore. But I still prayed for him to be given back, or for me to be taken instead. If I was just granted this one wish out of line, then I'd be content with all the other things I've never been at peace with.”

He shakes his head. “That's not how it works, though. God knew the hour Jonah would be born, and He knew the hour Jonah would die. He knew the course of his whole life before he ever drew breath. Knew mine, too. Knew I’d be sent halfway across the world and come back with a tally of bodies I never asked to count. Enemies, they said they were. They were just fuckin' people.

“I thought I could make up for it. Wash the blood off my hands and build something new. Be a better husband than the one my mother had. Be a better father than mine, even. But I don't know how—maybe ‘cause this is just what was meant for me. Things keep getting taken away and I'm done asking why. That kind of fighting… It’s not the one I know. There’s no more justice waiting at the end of this road. There’s just us, and how we keep failing each other, and how we live with what’s left.”

His gaze lands on Christopher, worn and shameful. “Your brother’s dead. Not because of fate. Not because he deserved it or didn’t. Just because he made friends with the wrong person. He was always going to. That’s not to say I don’t miss him every damn day. Sometimes I still wait for his voice at the door. Sometimes I wake up thinking he’s here and everything before that was just one long, bad dream. And as much as it pains me, I have to believe that his death wasn’t a mistake. It was part of the plan. Just like the rest of this. We’re all walking paths laid out before we ever took our first steps. You don’t get to change that just because it hurts.”

A beat passes. He softens, but the steel doesn’t leave. “So no, I don’t believe Jonah’s out there. I believe he’s gone. I believe God took him. And I believe it was always going to happen that way. You keep pulling at threads He already tied off, Christopher, and you’re gonna unravel what little peace is left in this house.”

Rodney picks up his discarded beer bottles on the coffee table from yesterday and slumps out of the living room to dispose of them in the kitchen. Christopher does not move for a long time. Eventually, he gets his boots on and grabs the key to his bike by the door. He drives to the southern half of Coldwater. He calls in sick to work. He reaches Harland’s Auto & Diesel and drives right past.

Chapter Text

Mr. Cotton’s home is a confluence of overgrown grass pimpled with weeds and dandelion puffs the same shade as the white, yellowing siding. A porch juts out of the square house, sagging slightly to the left and speckled green. To the left is a tiny shed, just big enough to hold one man of middling height and a gardening spade or two. Leading up to it is a shoddy space of gravel upon which is parked a banana-colored 70s’ AMC Pacer, the bumper taped-up like a slit finger. Christopher and Mariana—standing in front of Christopher’s Harley by the curb—think separately and identically that it matches perfectly with the color scheme and general aura. Christopher was first here two years ago to deliver a Christmas present (a custom-made guitar strap that cost him a good chunk of money, but that he was happy to give up for Mr. Cotton). It hadn't been the pinochle of neighborhood beauty at the time—pure as it was in a layer of snow and rebirthed as most of the outside is in winter—but somehow it wasn’t as derelict as it is now. He’s visited on multiple occasions since then, but is usually shooed away with a Yes, I’m doing great. Thanks for stopping by .

“It’s…” Mariana fishes for a compliment. “Quaint.”

“Truly,” Christopher agrees. He'd been dreading this on the ride over, but is glad they decided to go now that they're there. He doesn't know how often Mr. Cotton is checked on, if at all, and Christopher hasn’t been over in a while. He has no family in town, with no siblings to speak of and both his parents in Colorado.

Christopher heads up the cracked sidewalk to the porch. Mariana follows and watches him knock on a door with chipped paint and the rectangular window covered by a flap of cardboard. No one answers for a long time. They glance at the windows for a sign of movement, but dark blue drapes block passersby from seeing inside.

“Is he home?” Mariana whispers.

“Give him a minute,” Christopher whispers back, and makes a second set of three knocks.

60 seconds of waiting. The sky drains of whatever color remains. Mariana suggests they come back later, but Christopher is resolute. Their chances of finding Danny shrink with every passing second, as does Sofia’s safety. He’s about to reply as much when the knob twists to the right and hinges yell in agony. The door opens a crack, revealing half of Mr. Cotton's beleaguered face. Recognition flickers in his brown eyes, dulled by the dirty lenses of his glasses.

“Christopher,” he greets, but doesn’t widen the gap between the door and the doorframe. “I wasn’t expecting to see you today.”

“Hi, Rick.” Christopher shuffles to the side, revealing Mariana with her hands at her back. Mr. Cotton’s brow lifts and he gives her a tight-lipped smile.

“You’re… Sofia Álvarez’s sister, aren’t you?”

Mariana flashes him a smile in return, offering one hand to shake. He takes it limply and retracts his arm after a single up-and-down motion.

“Mariana,” she introduces. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Same here,” he says, sounding ready to retreat into his hovel. “What brings you two around? Not joining the search party?”

“We’re conducting a search of our own,” Christopher answers solemnly. “We’d like to ask for your help.”

“Ah…” Mr. Cotton shrivels in on himself. He glances at the porch. “I’m sorry, Christopher—Mariana—but I’m not sure I want to get myself involved.”

“It won’t take long,” Christopher pushes. “Just a few minutes. All we want is to ask a couple questions.”

“The police were just here the other day. I won’t have anything to offer you that I haven’t already given them.”

“They’re not all about Danny,” Mariana says. “The questions, I mean. Some of them—well, most of them are about Jonah.”

The name hangs stale in the air. Mr. Cotton goes rigid, as if a noose has been tied around his neck.

“I don’t want to talk about Jonah,” he says with finality, and tries to close the door. Christopher catches it with his hand.

“I know we don’t have any right to bring him up,” he begs, desperate. “And force you to confront things you probably don’t want to remember. I know you cared about him, and that it's painful to think about what happened. But we've been looking back on that year, and if something else was going on when he… died,” Christopher momentarily hates himself for the word. “Then we need to figure out the truth so he can be laid to rest in peace—so what happened to him doesn't happen to anyone else.”

Mr. Cotton takes a moment to respond. He leans his weight against the door, caught somewhere between slamming it shut and letting it drift open. Behind him, the gloom of the house presses close, the shadow of a larger silence. He exhales—a thin, whistling sound through his nose.

“Five minutes,” he mutters, stepping aside. “You have five minutes.”

Christopher and Mariana file into the house. They immediately find themselves in a condensed living room, dim and hushed. A cube-shaped TV roosts in a corner by the window looking out at the street. Positioned in front is a soiled couch, cutting diagonally across the floor and soaking in a weak, golden cone cast by a lamp on a folding table to its right. Dust clings to the surfaces like a second skin. It smells thickly of artificial food—a microwave meal of beef, maybe, and mashed potatoes.

Mr. Cotton hastens to close a coat closet as Mariana’s eyes dart from the hodge-podge of cluttered furniture and trinkets to crooked paintings that seem to have once hung with aesthetic purpose, but have been abandoned to indifference. Christopher follows her lead, gaze snagging on the Washburn by the TV, the custom guitar strap he gifted to Mr. Cotton twined about its neck in florid streaks of green and blue. He grimaces at the broken E-string.

Rick sits with his back to them in the center of the couch.

“Go on,” he prompts. “Ask your questions.”

Mariana looks at Christopher. He nods, and she stuffs her free hand in the pocket of her rouge duffle coat. In her other is Jonah’s composition book, still hidden.

“Mr. Cotton, did Jonah ever… confide in you about anything?”

“I suppose. He told me about stuff going on in his life sometimes. Things that made his day or ruined it.”

“Do you know if he was… bothered by anything in particular?”

A hesitation. “…No.”

Mariana changes track. “What tended to ruin his day?”

“Not being able to get a riff down. Not being able to think up a good ending to a song.”

“Anything else?”

Mr. Cotton’s head lowers. They continue to talk in circles. Christopher digs the nail of his middle finger into his thumb, growing antsy.

“Sometimes he’d bring up his troubles at school during our lessons,” Mr. Cotton at last allows. “He knew some of the kids talked behind his back. I think it bothered him more than he liked to admit.”

“Do you know why they did that?” Christopher asks, seeing an opening and grasping it. “Talk behind his back?"

“…I have an idea.”

He walks into the living room, traipsing intentionally around the couch. Mariana goes along reluctantly.

“You know Will Thatcher?” he asks. “Jonah’s friend?”

Mr. Cotton peeks up at him, nodding.

“Will’s girlfriend Marissa—you know her—she was jealous of Jonah because of how close he was to Will. She thought he was gay and got all her friends to believe it, too—or at least to make fun of him for it. I’ve never bought it myself, but maybe she saw things I didn’t, and I think now that you know things I don’t. If you do… Please, just tell us.”

“How does this relate to your search?”

“Because if it’s true, it might be the reason why he disappeared.”

“…I don’t know, Christopher,” he says. “He never told me anything like that.”

Christopher takes in Mr. Cotton’s draining pallor and dilated pupils. Suspicion fills him like a sieve.

“You’re lying,” he accuses.

“Christopher…” Mariana says quietly. “We shouldn’t push him— ”

He turns to her. “Can you hand me his book? Please?”

The look Mariana gives him could drill through a cliffside, but she gives him Jonah’s composition book. He opens to the untitled piece and holds it in front of Mr. Cotton’s face.

“When you gave this to me,” Christopher says. “You said you helped him write a few of the songs. Did you help him with this one?”

Mr. Cotton stares at the page, his gaze zipping from left to right as he drinks in the lyrics.

“…I had no idea this was in here,” he murmurs, and gives a shake of his head. “No… No, I didn’t help him with that.”

“But— ”

“Jonah was troubled, Christopher,” Mr. Cotton interjects. “I’ll admit that. I think he carried a lot inside him he didn’t know how to let out except in song. I wasn't privy to the specifics of what he was carrying, though.”

The ceiling fan slices through the stillness, and lamplight pools in amber wells in the brown carpet.

“I tried to guide him,” he says, softer now. “Just tried to… set him right, whenever he came to me. I gave him someone to talk to, if he needed it.”

“You said he was troubled. What did you mean by that?”

“I meant…” Mr. Cotton rubs at the side of his neck. “There was something restless in him. I don’t know if it’s because he was… inclined that way, or if it was because of something else. I wasn't anything more than his teacher, in the end. I just gave lessons. I just taught music.”

Mr. Cotton won't look him in the eye. Disappointment strangles Christopher so thoroughly he can't speak. Mariana does for him, moving on to questions about Danny until the five minutes have run dry. He feels a door closing on them even before they're escorted out. As they're heading down the porch steps, coughing leaks beneath the wood—the croak of a dying man. A man in pain.

Chapter Text

“What are we doing here?”

Mariana surveys Grand Green Apartments uncertainly, her hair a frizzy mess around her shoulders. The top is plastered flat to her head from the old helmet Christopher gave her to wear. The afternoon sun crowns her like a halo.

“To see if Danny has a diary,” Christopher replies, unable to hide his ire at Mr. Cotton’s lack of answers. He marches toward the building and up the stairs once inside, Mariana struggling to keep pace.

“Christopher— ” she objects. “Slow down— ”

They reach the second floor. He gets to the end of the hall, his companion now all but jogging.

“Do you even have a key?” she demands, slightly out of breath. She objects when he pulls out his bobby pin.

“Don’t tell me— ”

“No,” Christopher says. “I don't have a key. This is the only way.”

Mariana’s expression alights in horror as he reaches for the knob. She grabs his hand, her palm smooth and soft and the shape overall much smaller than his. He stares at it.

“We can't just break in!” she says, leaning in. “It's against the law, for one, and for another…”

She doesn't smell like dirt and sweat anymore, he notes, but the sweetness still clings to her, a scent he identifies as brown sugar. He tilts his head down, and becomes acutely aware of their proximity. It works in strange ways, how he can glimpse her face and momentarily forget the horrible misconstructions that have plagued him all day. There's a phantom biting at his shins, and still he can see the saffron in her eyes and want it to bleed into himself, even if it means the phantom will keep on biting and he'll turn out scarred and ugly. It's ridiculous, but he does not feel that way when she stills and her hand tightens and she drops her attention to his mouth.

Footsteps on the stairs, three pairs of them. Mariana startles, stepping back to the window and taking her warmth with her. Christopher’s face heats like a schoolboy, though he's kissed plenty of girls before and been in plenty of situations where he was about to. The concept isn't new to him. But he wishes, suddenly, that it was. His mom used to talk about how special it was for her—not the moment itself, but its gravity. She didn't have daughters to tell such things to, so her sons had to suffice. Sally described with romantic inflection how she'd saved the moment for her husband so it could belong to him alone. She'd never realize the mistake she'd made giving it to his dad, just as he would never get to experience it for himself.

A voice carries out of the stairwell, not allowing him to dwell. It's quiet and somber, laden with concern.

“And you're sure he wasn't at his house? Could've been somewhere else around the farm.”

Christopher skin pricks. Raymond.

“Nope.” This one is a different person—another man, scratchy and rough at the edges. Wes? “We looked around the whole place, man. Mr. Henris said he was at work but, you know, that was a fat lie. Never trust anything that old fart says.”

“Wes…” Simon sighs.

“I'm just tellin’ it like it is…”

They three emerge into the hallway, Raymond carrying a cloth toolbox, Wes a wooden crate with woodworking supplies, and Simon several large planks of maple wood, arranged like a congo line or the humps of a caterpillar. Wes stops when he sees Christopher, his mouth flapping open and shut. Simon smacks into him from behind. Christopher hears Raymond crash into Simon's back, the last domino to fall.

“Jesus, Wes— ” Simon complains.

“Christopher?” Wes proclaims, shocked. “What the hell, dude?! We've been looking for you everywhere!” Then he squints, brow scrunching. “Mariana?”

“Um…” Mariana sinks further into the window.

What follows is a tedious procession of Simon telling Wes to cut the jokes, Wes pressing himself against a wall so Simon can squeeze through and see for himself that he isn't joking, and vitriolic exclamations of disbelief from the both of them, who were certain Christopher had done something profoundly stupid when he didn't show up for the search party. The premonition was compounded when he didn't answer the door at the Henris farm, and when they went to Harland's and learned that he called in for work. They demand explanations as Raymond unlocks the door to his apartment for them.

Christopher wrestles with the urge to grab them and Mariana and run as far and fast as possible from the Grand Green, while simultaneously fantasizing about dashing into Raymond's home and upturning every mattress, clawing under every shelf, ripping up every floorboard for a single scrap of evidence. He wants to look the Bible verse hanging on his living room wall in the eye, as if it will enlighten him to the rights and wrongs of its owner in a prophetic vision. Raymond smiles at Mariana, and Christopher is helpless but to move backward, half-shielding her with his body as the hair rises on the nape of his neck.

Simon and Wes bid Raymond farewell, thanking him for his time. Raymond pays for their labor, handing out five-dollar bills like a dealer with a particularly handsome deck of cards. They take their pay while Christopher takes Mariana's hand, dashing toward the stairs. The rest of Redshift hasten to follow, calling after him. Christopher doesn't stop until their feet slap the autumn-dry pavement of the parking lot.

Simon's van—not previously in the area—is tucked into an empty space in the corner furthest from the building. Christopher braces himself against it. Simon, Wes, and Mariana link together in a heaving semi-circle around him.

“What the hell, Christopher?” Wes repeats. “Like, actually. I'm being so serious right now.”

“You can't be around him,” Christopher warns. It comes out more ominous than he intended. “Raymond. He could be dangerous.”

The open sliver of Simon's mouth is one of flabbergasted admonition, then devastated disappointment.

“…What?” he asks, like he'd been expecting Christopher to say something else and can't bring himself to terms with the fact that he didn't. He'd probably been hoping for an explanation. “What are you talking about now?”

Mariana inches closer to Christopher. “It's true,” she says. “We think he could’ve done something to Danny.”

Simon and Wes glance at her slowly.

“What the fuck is going on…” Wes whispers, so quiet Christopher can hardly hear him.

“We'll explain but first—what were you doing with Raymond?” Christopher presses. “Why were you with him?”

“We were driving around looking for you,” Wes explains. “And we saw Raymond on the side of the road when we were driving back from your place and Si pulled over and he told us his truck broke down so— ”

“We offered him a ride and helped him bring his supplies up to his apartment,” Simon finishes. “That’s all.”

Christopher scintillates, brain jumping from point to conclusion. Why isn't Raymond searching for Danny? He’d probably be the first to join the search party out of everyone, even if he'd been hired for a job. His suspicion from earlier gutters to life, a flame not fully extinguished.

Perhaps Raymond had made a mistake. Perhaps he was covering his tracks in the woods. Whatever the reason, it can't wait.

Chapter Text

2:17 P.M. Laura’s knife cuts through a patch of brambles, thorny vines along the makeshift path tearing greedily at the sleeves of the coat. She leads a search team of five into a canopy of hickories, sycamores, and bur oaks 15.4 miles northeast of Coldwater, tucked along an old forest service road off Highway BB—the one Christopher took as a desperate 12-year-old. Behind her is Patrol Officer Kyle Bledsoe; Mike Ebner, a 50-year-old farmer, quiet and practical in a Coldwater Cougars baseball cap; Lewis Fischer, a skittish 20-year-old from the graduating class of 1997; and Anita Bell, a 34-year-old cashier at the Phillips 66 who claimed to know the woods like the back of her hand when she signed in for the search. They've been prowling the land since 8 A.M. and are deep into this particular grid. They alternate between calling Danny’s name. Mike is a throaty warble. Anita is a steady alto. Laura's frustration mounts with each fruitless second.

2:25 P.M. The group stumbles upon a small, rotting wooden platform six feet up in a tree—an abandoned deer blind. Beneath it: food wrappers, a forgotten thermos, and a beer can with a modern label, maybe less than two weeks old. Officer Bledsoe takes photos. Laura kneels, feeling the ground. The soil beneath the bottle is slightly damp, as if it were recently moved. It's not evidence, but it tells her someone was recently in the area. They’re too far away for it to be a member of the other search groups. Most likely a hunter, but there are always other possibilities—such as, for instance, the man in Mariana’s photo. It's not much, but it's something.

2:38 P.M. They find what appears to be a flannel scrap, clinging to a low-hanging oak branch. Torn, faded red with white threading. It doesn't match the description Christopher gave her of what Danny was wearing the night of the party—the kid seemed fond of the color black—but it might belong to the person who napped him, if that was indeed his fate. She has Officer Bledsoe place it in a plastic bag and marks the location.

2:45 P.M. They pause to hydrate. It's quiet. Lewis, leaning with his ruddy hands on his knees, is the first to break the silence festering over the long hours. He comments casually on how far they are from everyone else, and Laura can hear his doubt as clearly as she can his false cheer. He doesn't believe there's anything out here for them to find. He'd also been startled earlier by a raccoon and has been on edge since—not that she blames him.

“It is a bit far…” Anita agrees.

“Wasn’t too far for Jonah Henris to be murdered,” Laura says flatly, effectively ending their complaints.

She tells them to pack up and get ready to continue. It'd been a shorter break than the ones previous, but if the beer can and flannel from earlier is any indication of what might lay ahead, then they need to keep on their feet. Laura re-ties her ponytail and listens to the rasp of her water bottle as she closes the lid and the clod of approaching footsteps. She stills, as does everyone else in the clearing. Rabbits caught in a snare. She shakes her head at them, determining the direction of the steps. Don't move .

Laura snaps open the holster of her gun—a Remington 870 Police Magnum she swapped her Smith and Wesson Model 686 for before leaving the sheriff's office that morning—and glides soundlessly to the clutch of lichen-frosted tree trunks on the right. Officer Bledsoe tails her. Lewis and Anita are so quiet, they might as well not be there.

She slows. The footsteps do not. Laura raises her gun, cocking it. A second later, she has it pointed at Wayne Thatcher's chest.

Chapter Text

He's handsome in a dark olive-waxed canvas jacket, Barbour-style and pristine. His polished leather boots gleam in dappled sunlight, and there isn’t a speck of dirt on his wool trousers. Until she caught the ruts and aged indents on his face, Laura had thought she was looking at Will.

“You didn’t volunteer for the search party,” she says, leaning against a tree in the corner of the clearing. They’d sequestered themselves out of range to talk privately. Mike, Anita, and Officer Bledsoe keep to a little triangle by themselves, no doubt trying to eavesdrop.

“Didn’t think I had to,” Wayne replies smoothly. His teeth flash bright when he speaks. “I’m sure you’ll turn over every rock and stone with or without my help.”

“It’s the principle of the matter.”

“Point remains. I have other things to worry about.”

He doesn’t explain, instead rubbing his thumb over an invisible speck on his hunting rifle. It’s a Holland & Holland Royal Deluxe Bolt-Action with a .375 H&H Magnum—a thing of beauty. The receiver is hand-engraved, the stock a rich walnut with an oil finish and checkered grip. It probably cost half as much as her house. Extreme overkill for white-tail.

“This one’s been with me since my father put it together for my sixteenth,” he explains, noticing the direction of her attention. “Took a caribou with it up in Alberta. Hell of a thing. Heavy, but it balances nice.”

“What are you doing out here?” Laura asks.

“What does it seem like?”

She looks at him coldly. “You’re really shooting deers for fun with everything that’s going on right now?”

He shrugs. “I personally don’t see the reason for all the concern. Ruiz was a reprobate and criminal, from the sound of it. People like him… They don’t have roots. He most likely left town of his own accord and didn’t bother telling anyone where he was going.”

“We can assume that if we don’t find him out here.”

Wayne smiles saccharinely. “You decided to go out of your way to search my land.” His hand slides down the barrel of his Holland. “As I said—every rock and stone.”

“We’re not on your land.”

“Close enough.”

“No offense, Wayne, but I don’t give a damn whether I'm dancing around your imaginary borders. I have valid cause to be looking over here.”

“My boy’s in prison, Laura,” Wayne says, sharper. “He didn’t play a part in Jonah’s disappearance back then and he sure as hell didn’t in Ruiz’s.”

“I didn’t say he did. But that’s a bold assertion.”

“The truth is still the truth when no one else believes it.”

“There was evidence.”

“Misconstrued.”

“He admitted to it.”

“Coercion. Mania.”

“There’s a girl’s blood on his hands.”

“I won’t argue with you, Sheriff,” he says resolutely, hefting up his rifle. He doesn’t seem bothered by her dismissals. “You know what’s best, after all. Now if you'll excuse me, I’d like to return to my search.”

Laura frowns as Wayne walks across the clearing. The others watch him go. “Search?” An odd word to use.

“You might not be on my land,” he calls back. “But someone else was.”

Chapter Text

3:06 P.M. Christopher retraces steps embedded in the soil from days long past, his boots twice the size of his 1991 sneakers. They sink viscerally into scalps of grass and the flesh of dirt. He knows this neck of the woods as well as he knows his father's kindness and the shifting terrain of his dreamscape: not at all, but he feels closer to it than a life-long enemy—that if its brackish, emerald face could be transcribed to the features of a human, he'd be able to pick it out of a crowd and call it by its name.

“Christopher!” Simon calls, he and Wes and Mariana lagging several feet behind on his blazing trail. “I've had enough of this—Jesus— ” A stumble. “We need to leave!”

“There's an answer here, Si,” Christopher responds. “I know it. Whoever took Danny—they were in here.”

“I don’t like this, Chrissy,” Wes says. The nickname is absurdly out of place. “This is—It’s— ”

“It’s what?”

“Insanity?” He jogs to catch up, appearing at Christopher’s left in a spritz of blonde spikes. Simon and Mariana copy him, materializing on the right. “It’s been hours—We should just head back to town and wait for the sheriff. I don’t want to end up the next sinner on this fucker’s hit list.”

“Wes is right,” Simon agrees. “We can’t find Danny if we’re—you know— dead?”

“None of you had to come,” Christopher argues. He continues at a breakneck pace, only slowing to examine the shadows cast by trees and look for signs of life, whatever and wherever they may be. He’s seared the image of Raymond into his mind. “I told you not to but you insisted— ”

“Don’t even start.” Simon veers in front of Christopher, stopping the group in their tracks. Christopher glares at him. He’s gifted one back in full force. “We all know you would’ve gone in anyway like a fucking idiot.”

“Move,” Christopher says stonily. “We’re wasting time.”

“The only way we’re wasting time is by getting lost in these damn woods! Can you use your brain for once in your life, Christopher? Just once ? There could be a serial killer out here and you’re running right towards him! Her! Whatever !”

“Fine!” Christopher snaps. “Have it your way! I’m running right towards them and it’s stupid and I’m asking for trouble and— ”

“Great! So we can leave— ”

“ —I don’t care .” His hands curl into fists. “I’m going to find Danny, I’m going to find out whatever’s going on in this damn town, and I’m going to stop it.”

“With what?” Simon scoffs. “Sheer force of will? You’re not a fucking Jedi. You’re Christopher Henris, alright? A normal human being. There's nothing more you can do to stop this than me or Wes or Mariana or—or anyone else besides the people whose job it is to deal with this kind of shit!”

“I don’t know, Simon! I don’t know and I don’t care! I told you this already!”

Simon clenches his jaw, a viridescent cloud building in the chestnut of his eyes. “You know what being friends with you is like? It’s like watching someone jump off a bridge over and over again and not being able to a damn thing ‘cause your friend wants to be listening to his favorite song when he kills himself so he has his headphones on and can’t hear all the people screaming at him to just get off the fucking bridge and move on.”

Wes stares at Simon, wide-eyed. Mariana looks between them like she doesn't feel it's her place to wedge into grooves she wasn’t there to carve. Christopher blinks, taken aback. Simon himself is in a similar state of disgruntlement, as if someone else had spoken the words and he was just watching from the sidelines.

Christopher laughs, then: a dry, unpleasant sound that scrapes the walls of his throat. “Real nice, Si,” he says. “How long you been rehearsing that?”

Simon does not answer until Christopher shoves past.

“Christopher, wait,” he implores, going after him. “I didn't mean it— ”

“It's fine, Si. You did. No point in denying it.” Fingers crunch underfoot. The earth and its ancient anger screams for release. “You want me to move on with my life and forget about Jonah and sing kumbaya with you and Wes so we can frolick into the sunset together like fucking hippies and live happily ever after.”

“No, I just—That’s not what I meant— ”

“That's what I meant.” Christopher stops and pivots on his heel. Simon nearly runs into him. Guilt and anger interplay across his face, carving the curl of his downturned mouth. “That's what I want. I wake up every day wishing I could be like you and not have to give a shit about anything ‘cause my brother's asleep in the room across the hall, right where he's supposed to be. I wish every day that I could just—that I could just be the normal human being you say I am. I don't feel normal at all. I never feel normal.” Hairline fractures creep along his voice. He digs the nails of one hand into his sweaty palm; he can't with the other because it's holding his Magnum 10. “It's like there's this thing, and—and it's eating me, but I can't kill it and I can't ignore it no matter how much I try. I care too much. I can't let him go.”

“I do give a shit about things,” Simon says slowly. “About you. There's never a day when I don't. That thing that's eating you? It eats me, too, whenever you pull crap like this. It's called grief, Chris, and it's not fair of you to keep putting me and Wes through it when you're not even fucking dead. It’s not fair to yourself.”

Christopher gapes at him, dry-mouthed. “What do you want from me?” he asks.

Simon's expression shutters and claps, lightning-like and pained, as if he’s used up all his intelligent speech and can't think of anything else to say.

“I want you to stop,” he murmurs.

I want you to stop.

I want you to stop.

I want you to stop.

I know you won’t stop.

Christopher swallows. The saliva burns. “I…”

“I hear something,” Mariana interrupts, soft.

Simon and Christopher and Wes stiffen, listening. The crack of branches cuts into the perimeter, heavy and foreboding. Their spines align in anticipation. Christopher’s hold tightens on his Magnum.

“…Who— ” Wes starts.

Simon and Christopher shoot him warning looks. The sentence dies in cool, enclosing air. Pressure builds in Christopher’s chest, forcing his heart to a gallop. They're too far out for it to be someone from the search party; he’d insisted that they head out to the place Will was found with Luanne, where Jonah was killed—where the seed of Christopher’s unending desperation was planted and grew as thick and wild as the hickories and sycamores and bur oaks.

It could be him, he thinks, and prays to God that it is. He wants to finally face the terror, the shadow, the stalker, the man in the treeline. He wants to be the harbinger of its end. One bullet for every face he has ever worn. He won't run—not this time.

The footsteps stop, waiting. Simon shifts infinitesimally closer, preparing to grab them and run.

He isn't given a reason to. The footsteps turn in the other direction. It dawns on them in the absence of movement and impending danger that the shadow is walking away.

“No…” Christopher mutters, unable to prevent himself from moving forward.

Simon takes his arm—tells him to stop—but he wrenches free. Lamentations pass through the ear but don't thorn in the brain or slip within the tight cardiac notch of a sore heart. Christopher hears and does not as he chases after the shadow.

Chapter Text

It's brighter than it was then, but darkness simmers in bones both in the ground and never laid to rest. The clouds of earlier have rolled away and pipelines of light blanch a thousand different paths, painting russet leaves flaxen and ripe for destruction. Christopher stops, his breath coming hard, white-knuckled on his gun. He spins toward every crunch and shush where noise should be but isn’t. He loses track of the shadow; finds it again in the nomadic smear of blue cloth ahead and draws forward like a magnet, pistoning himself against a hard place—a glacial flatland of impenetrable and corrugated metal. He enfolds his half-grown self in the mature ambers and scarlets of October, shouting at the shadow to come back—to pay off old debts. He calls him a coward through the blackberry brambles and the muscadine and the pokeweed, parched and hoarse as the vocals of a song he once sung—a song that does not end. Time is abstract in the burgeoning thickness and the choking sun and the panhandle of shadows that skewer him into a gully consummated by damp patches of leaves. Christopher slips at its crest, grabbing at a tree for balance. The movement gives him a slightly higher vantage, revealing a veracity he has craved and denied.

The lower half of Danny’s boot is peeking up from gully. He would know it was Danny’s even if he didn’t recognize the scuffs and holes of the outsole. Its appearance opens the stench to him like a floodgate, rotting meat and iron and mildew shaping itself to the guttering of his tongue. The footsteps are gone, though there are others approaching in the distance: a woman with a Remington and a man with a Holland & Holland. They herald with them half the advent of peril. Christopher will not notice their arrival at the gully, or how they recoil from its secret.

“…Danny?” he chokes, hoping for an answer that will not come.

An axiom, sickly sweet and sour—pungent in its authenticity—lies in the base of the gully, an arm twisted beneath his empty chest and a hole in the back of his head. Maggots and ants eat at his face. Blowflies dart sparsely in the fall. Scavenging animals and decomposition have warped the back of his skull, leaving nothing in the hollow but an expulsion of artificial holiness.

Around his neck is a white, wilted lily.

Chapter Text

Christopher does not speak for a long time. He stares at the ground, eyes blown wide and blue and as unseeing as Danny Ruiz. She grabs him by upper arms and holds him loose but firm. Did you see anyone? Did they have a weapon? What happened? Christopher, you have to tell me what happened.

But she knows what happened, at least on the surface. The smell tells her that the body's been festering for days. Christopher’s gaping silence speaks of shock, unadulterated and pure. Another boy. Another failure.

The rest of the search party quickly arrives on-seen as she radios in, having multiplied in the short time they were separated from herself and Wayne. She recognizes Simon Lane. Wesley Calder. Mariana Álvarez. They race toward Christopher, congealing around him like leukocytes to a blistering infection. He gives them the same silence he'd given her, gaze latched to the body. Simon moves in front of him, blocking his view, but Christopher looks at the same spot as if Simon is translucent.

The coroner and a forensics team arrive at 4:37 P.M. Everything is photographed, from the terrain to the footpaths, the body to the boots. The lily tied around his neck with string—a Madonna—is gloved, bagged, and documented in multiple angles to later be sent in for forensic analysis. Danny is officially confirmed deceased, but the scene won't be cleared until full processing is done. The next steps—official and unofficial—have already been drawn out. The horror of the black paint in which they were written creeps on her subtly as sunset descends over the valley, so beautiful it must be a lie. She cruises into Coldwater that evening to townspeople and the other divisions of the search party circling the police station, the news having spread jugularly throughout the blocks. The case is converted from missing person to homicide.

In the singular moment she has to herself that night, Laura leans against the wall by the shuttered window in her office and wonders how cursed she must be to have failed three people—three, in a town smaller than the size of her thumb. Where do the errors lie, and to whom do they belong? Who is she to blame? A higher power, or her own infallible, inhuman—and therefore human—incompetence?  Who tends the fire? Who makes it rage? Why was she not granted the water to douse its fury?

Chapter Text

Dr. Kieran L. Mathers examines Danny’s body in a sterile room under fluorescent lights 38 miles southeast of Coldwater at the County Coroner’s Facility, where Luanne had once lain naked and vulnerable. His body shows signs of early decomposition. Skin slippage is noted on his hands and lower legs, with mild bloating in the abdominal region. Superficial abrasions on the forearms and knees are consistent with animal disturbance or prior movement through underbrush. Insects and beetle larvae have localized around his orifices and the wound site.

The wound itself is located at the lower occipital bone, left of midline. It is approximately 0.25 inches in diameter, indicating a small-caliber projectile—likely .22 or .25. Its margins are clean—no stippling or soot observed—suggesting that it was fired from medium to long range. Mathers estimates three feet. He finds no exit wound, and an X-ray confirms the retention of a bullet lodged in the right frontal lobe, its trajectory sharply upward. The shooter had likely been standing above, with Danny either seated or kneeling.

Catastrophic trauma was caused to the brainstem and cerebral cortex. The death was swift. He would not have had time to suffer. His toxicology report reveals his Blood Alcohol Content to be at 0.09% and positive THC. Trace levels of cocaine are found in his bloodstream. Benzodiazepines are detected at sedative levels, consistent with recreational use or combined ingestion with alcohol. He is determined to not have been shot the night of the 26th, but the morning of the 27th.

Chapter Text

Deputy Lynn is tasked with revisiting the cases of Luanne Calloway and Jonah Henris. Laura visits the Álvarez house for a private interview with both its daughters. Local radios and papers report Danny’s death in the trundling bulk of car carriages and the cartridges of stores, halting shoppers in their path. A body found in the woods near Meridian Lodge. Homicide confirmed. White flower at scene.

Doors are locked. Blinds are drawn. Danny Ruiz does not have a mother to pray for him, nor a father to curse God for taking away his son.

Chapter Text

The Walls is cold in winter and rank in summer, moldered with metal, sweat, and old oil. Cockroaches and rats hold seances in corners. Pipes groan and clatter, but they’re never quite as loud as the morning buzzer and the metal door of his cell as it shudders open. It’s this that Will Thatcher has woken to every morning since September 15, 1991.

Some days he mops the floors or wipes down his neighbors’ homes—menial labor he doesn’t mind as it doesn’t require much thought. On others, he refuses to leave his hold. He’s built a reputation for being silent, but not disruptive, so guards tend to leave him be. Today, with the aftertaste of his nightmare fresh in his mind, he feels like staying in his cell. He does till noon, lying on a hard cot that drags him in and out of sleep. He makes a constellation of Marissa with the bumps and divots on his ceiling during hours of wakefulness, and with chapped hands he throws pretend-darts in her hazel eyes. He knows it’s wrong to hate. Jonah always said shit about forgiving the unforgivable. It’s a nice sentiment—a Jonah sentiment, which makes it automatically so by principle. Will prays to God for the umpteenth time in his life to make him a better person, and tells Him he’s sorry for throwing darts in his ex-girlfriend’s eyes. Then he imagines Richard Cotton’s face and the darts turn to daggers and, eventually, bullets. He continues to throw without remorse, content with the knowledge that if he were to somehow be released from The Walls, he would go right back in for Cotton's murder—perhaps to the gas chamber this time. He hopes for it, even. Better than going through the effort of killing himself in a place like this. Will would gladly re-carve the path he's paved to hell if it meant Cotton would be dead at the end of it.

Lunch is mystery meat and powdered mashed potatoes and lukewarm soup he's trained his gag reflexes not to reject. In the afternoon he reads scripture because he can pretend it’s Jonah reading it to him. There is no longer discomfort or anger from cracking open a Bible. Will studies Psalm 88, as well as chapters one and three of Ecclesiastes. That which is crooked cannot be made straight: and that which is wanting cannot be numbered. He never had a particular interest in literature before, but prison has made him an avid enthusiast of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Michel Foucault and Elie Wiesel. The only fiction he’s allowed is The Trial by Franz Kafka, as it reads more like an essay on bureaucracy and guilt than it does a fantastical adventure from which he might derive enjoyment. He returns to his room for a bit and stares at the ceiling as he waits for mail call. He avoids the yard if he can. Some inmates have spread rumors that he’s a Satanist or clairvoyant for absolutely no reason he can think of that would make sense besides burgeoning insanity.

Mail call comes and goes, as always. Will doesn’t get letters anymore—not since Sally Henris stopped writing four years ago, begging him for answers he does not have—but he gets his hopes up, anyway. They are dashed like sea against rock, as the larger, sensible part of himself had known they would be—the part that knows he should stop. But if he lets go of his pebble of foolishness, he will be unmoored completely.

He goes back to the library and sits at a table in the corner, thumbing through a worn copy of Discipline and Punish. Disappointment is choking him today. He doesn’t know if it’s because of his nightmare or if the silence is finally getting to him. Will likes to dissect his dreams like a scientist at work, which he does now to ignore the choking. In this one, Jonah was lying on the bed in Will’s bedroom and Will was on the floor. Jonah rolled onto his stomach, reading a comic book that Will’s subconscious had created and did not exist in real life. He snorted and lifted it up for Will to snort at, too, and Will looked and he blinked and suddenly Jonah’s blood was soaking into his backpack, and Jonah was wheezing, and Will’s hands were shaking so bad and he could not remember a single thing he had learned in Boy Scouts about first aid—just that you were supposed to apply pressure and the person has to stay awake and the person has to not die.

I'm not ready to go, Will, Jonah slurred. I'm not ready. I didn't mean it. I didn't mean what I said. I don't wanna die.

Shut up, Jonah, Will cried. Stop talking.

A folded issue of the Jefferson City News Tribune lands on the table in front of him.

“Mail come late for you, Thatcher?”

Will glances at it, but doesn’t read the cover. He reaches over and pushes it away.

“Not interested, Fenley,” he says, and returns to the musings of Solzhenitsyn.

Correctional Officer Jack Fenley—mid-50s, mustache a gray rake and skin creased like leather—pushes the newspaper back toward Will. He’s been working at the Missouri State Penitentiary for decades. Doesn’t like Will, exactly, but doesn’t not like him, either. Will is a good inmate, if there is such a thing at The Walls. He doesn’t stir shit, and for that Fenley is oddly partial to him.

“Read it.”

Will holds in a sigh, bookmarking Discipline and Punish with a napkin he stole from the mess. He takes the newspaper and holds it up to the light of the barred window to his left. Coldwater Man Found Dead in Woods is printed in bold along the header.

His brain is slow. Foggy. He reads it again, again and again and again. The moisture is sucked from his mouth.

“Interesting, ain’t it?” Fenley plucks the newspaper out of Will’s unresponsive hands and scans it over himself, a pair of reading glasses perched at the end of his nose. “So you had a partner in crime.”

It’s a shit joke. “That’s a shit joke,” Will says.

“Watch your mouth, Thatcher.”

“I acted alone.”

Fenley rests a hand on the table, leaning on it with dark, dry amusement. “Looks like someone’s out there reading from your old hymnbook, then. Can’t say if it’s admiration or coincidence, but damn if it ain’t poetic.”

“I didn’t do it to be poetic.”

“Yeah, yeah. I get it. I know you’re sick in the head.” A beat. “Town’s getting nervous. That lily’s got ‘em bent over backward.”

Fenley watches him for a second, expecting more. Will does not answer. He goes back to reading, his thumb running along the onion-thin page of his book. He waits for Fenley to slump away—disappointed at the lack of conversation—before he lets himself lurch.

Chapter Text

Laura interviewed Simon and Wes on the 9th, but they didn't have anything more than Christopher and Mariana had the day prior. They told her about the religious imagery, the cross in the woods, and their theory that Will had an accomplice and this individual is Christopher’s shadow, as well as Sofia Álvarez’s stalker and the man in Mariana's photo and Danny's murderer. Mariana gives her the cross she and Christopher found in the woods.

Laura reviews her case notes with Deputy Lynn afterwards. They note the recurring presence of the lilies: the one left in Sofia's locker and the one around Danny's neck. It's the most telling nugget of proof that points toward the kids being right. They reopen Will Thatcher’s statement from 1991, though Laura knows it almost word for word.

He wanted to run away together. I agreed. I took him out to the woods where we liked to play when we were younger. Said we should see it one last time. I told him to turn around. I held up the gun and I shot him twice. I acted alone.

In the rectum of her office—a dark and isolated womb—Laura writes down the names of their suspects: Emilio Álvarez, Wayne Thatcher, and Raymond O’Donoghue. Emilio and Raymond are put on a quiet watch list, but she has reason to interrogate Wayne considering his appearance in the woods the day Danny’s body was discovered.

On the 11th—after a candlelit vigil in which she had to stand before the 2,138 people she had sworn to protect and endure the rising heat of their betrayed stares—she holds a closed-door briefing with her deputies and the mayor, Marjorie Sutton. Laura explains the situation as it stands, and it's decided that a town-wide curfew should be put in place.

On the 12th, she requests access to the 1959 case of Paul Whitaker from the county archives—though, again, she knows it almost word for word. She read it over and over in her first years as a police officer, and in her second and third as well. Those were the days when she still clung to hope that the truth could be uncovered. She’s burned the image of Paul into her brain—can see the impression of his fate behind her eyelids. Laura blinks down at the file, a typewritten slog of incomprehensibility. It won’t be of any use to the investigation as it is, but an undead part of her she can’t help but wonder if there are connections—that Paul did not kill himself in those woods and leave her alone.

On the 13th, it’s revealed to the public at a town hall meeting that everyone should be in their homes by 8 P.M. Laura prepares questions for Will Thatcher, printing photos of the lilies and writing out passages Sofia remembers from the anonymous passages she received in high school. She contacts the Missouri State Penitentiary and schedules a visit.

Chapter Text

There has never been a time in his life when absence was so keen and sharp, except in the first years of Jonah’s disappearance. Christopher had pieces of his brother all around him in those days, objects and memories he could polish and hold when it hurt so bad he could hardly breathe. But he has nothing of Danny. His rememberings are tainted by Danny himself, the black recklessness of his temperament and the poison he used to drip: a rejection of friendship or belonging. Christopher lays in bed, unmoving, and finds himself wondering if he even cares that Danny was at the bottom of a gully—that Danny is dead and gone and will not come back the way he always has in the past.

It stokes a fire in him that he has danced his fingers along since boyhood: guilt, vibrant and molten, licking the callouses at the base of his fingers. He turns his palm over and down, pressing it flat into the flames. It feels better than the nothingness that has consumed him whole, that weighs on him as he tries to keep his mother alive. His consciousness comes in fragments he doesn't recall piecing together, three pasts melded into an ugly quilt. There’s a square for Jonah carrying him on his back and one for Danny dangling a cigarette in his face and one for his dad’s drunken, righteous anger the night of the 6th. Christopher had sat on the couch in the living room and looked at the TV and saw only Danny facedown in the dirt. He saw into the hole in his head and its desecration as if it were a tunnel, and through it Rodney’s voice echoed. You’re fuckin’ selfish, you hear that? The only fuckin’ I have left and you wanna take that from me, too. If you wanna kill yourself, just go ahead and get it over with so I can move on. You fuckin’ shit. You selfish piece of shit.

He doesn't come out of the house for days—calls from Ed and Simon and Wes and media outlets piling up on the phone—but he goes to the funeral and sits among people who gave even less of a shit about Danny than they did about Jonah, afraid that some wicked part of himself is like that, too—that he is mourning someone he did not truly know and cannot truly care for as a result. He wonders if his grief is an accumulation of fear and failure and expectation rather than longing for the body in the box. It terrifies him somewhat, though the numbness remains prevalent throughout Reverend Cates’s sermon about hope for peace. Simon agreed to speak in his place when Christopher rejected the offer and—as expected—knows all the right words. Every good thing about Danny he throws into the proverbial light, doing so in a way that does not falsely accuse him of sainthood or martyrdom. He was a boy not yet grown into himself, and Simon thinks God knows that, and also admits that he has not fully believed in Him until now.

“We were not promised an easy life,” he says. “But we were promised that we would not be alone in our suffering, and that there would be peace at its end. I believe Danny has found that peace now.”

Christopher takes this in, and chews on it as the coffin is lowered by canvas straps into a brown hole in the ground. He leaves as soon as the service is over and sees Laura heading in his direction. He goes back home and sits in the living room with his mom, failing to feel God in his suffering.

Chapter Text

No one else has gone missing or died, but Laura feels the threat of a greater evil looming over Coldwater all the same. She's looked into Danny's past as best she can. His father, Dominic Ruiz, hasn't been in the picture since he was a kid. His mother, Jodi Fletcher, died from a fall when he was seventeen. She was drunk and slipped on a wet spot in the bathroom. Her temporal bone struck the counter as she went down, causing a subdural hematoma. She bled internally for hours. Danny was not home, and by the time he arrived, she had long been dead. Laura finds no reason for him to be targeted by the killer besides being a “reprobate,” as Wayne put it. Wayne had also made it clear during his interrogation—which yielded little of significance, as well as his wife’s—that he believed Christopher should be under surveillance.

“Sure, I feel sorry for the boy,” he said. “But he's clearly a loose cannon. Unpredictable. A vagrant. Might even be the one terrorizing this town.”

Laura rejected this theory, but he rambled on in a thoughtful, deep-toned way, sorrowful and resolved. “I think you and I can both agree that he's… touched.”

“Touched,” Laura repeated.

“Something happened to him that night he saw my boy with that dead girl—God bless her soul. Something changed in his brain. The Henrises—and I mean no ill-will by this—they have certain inclinations for… mental disruptions. I've read up on such things. Lots of new research on it.” He shrugged helplessly. “It's biological as much as it is circumstantial. I mean, you know what happened to Rodney when Paul died. Threw himself headfirst into trouble. Never was quite the same after. Biological considerations aside… The fact remains that Christopher had to grow up in an environment where he didn’t have a sound father figure. That, on top of a dead brother… He’s being forced to walk in Rodney’s footsteps because there aren’t any others to follow. It’s cyclical, Laura. Watch him sign up for the next war if you don't believe me.”

Laura imagined chucking him out of the window. She does, however, ruminate other possibilities in her office as days fold into one another without beginning or end. The tape recording of her interview with Will on the 15th is running constantly. She studies the exhaustion in his face and the subtle inflections of his voice. He stays perfectly still throughout her questioning, and if he is not still he is tilting his head in apparent boredom, jolting his knee up and down like an overactive child, or lifting a cuffed hand to tug at his golden hair. He keeps it in a short coif, relatively in the shape she remembers but without the glossy sheen (prison doesn’t offer hair spray, she imagines). He is a direct copy of Wayne at 25, from the arch of his brow to the angle of his jaw.

No matter how many times you ask, he'd said. I acted alone.

Then who is this? A copycat?

Probably. I wouldn't know.

She’d clicked her ballpoint pen. Remember Christopher Henris?

Coldwater's very own Sherlock Holmes? Yes. Of course.

Remember how he said he was chased the night you murdered Luanne?

I do.

What do you think of that?

I think when he saw me, he was scared. I think it messed him up in the head. Or maybe someone else was there. Maybe he was chased.

Just like Wayne. She wonders if there’s indeed truth to Wayne’s rants about cycles. I don't want maybe’s.

I don't have yes’s. He fiddled with the chain of his cuffs. You're wasting time with me, sheriff. I don't have what you want. I don't know anything about this killer.

It has to be a lie. It can’t be the truth. It twists her into knots in her office chair. There must be something she’s missing.

At times she glances at the door, waiting for it to burst open and reveal a wide-eyed Christopher, a theory on his lips or the missing piece to a puzzle in the way he trips over his words. There’s nothing, though. The silence and the thinking becomes unbearable, so at last she drives out to the Henris farm and knocks on the door. The lights are out except for a weak ember from the kitchen.

Five minutes pass. She knocks again, determined to see him now that she’s here. Laura had called his friends before she left. Apparently he hasn’t come out in days.

The door opens a crack. She glimpses the blue of his eye peeking out of the dark sliver. He says her name, half a question and half a hello.

They sit on the front steps of the porch. Laura takes a cigarette from the pack stashed in her coat pocket and a lighter from her pants. The flame gutters like a star. Christopher watches an indefinable point in the sky, his head tilted away from her. His piercings are out, the holes partially sealed and healing. It's odd to see him without them.

“You’re avoiding me again,” she states matter-of-factly. She'd meant to say something different—something softer—but she’ll have to work with what’s already been spat.

Christopher doesn't answer for a while. His hands rest limply in his pockets.

“Yeah,” he murmurs. He does not deny nor elaborate.

Laura takes a drag, searching for words in the smoke as it billows in the night.

“We could go somewhere,” she offers. “When this is all over with. Visit a city in some other state for a couple hours. Something like that.”

He takes a while to answer again. “You’re needed here.”

“Even sheriffs get days off, believe it or not.”

Christopher gives in without argument. “Okay.”

She looks at him, a sinking sensation in her stomach. He watches the moon as if it will care for him the way she does. Laura remembers the way he'd plucked the cigarette out of her hold last month and held it up to the light. There was something in him, then, even if it was angry and hurting—something he could throw out that others could grasp and use to reel him back. No such thing now. No frays for her to tug and rewind.

“You can talk to me about anything, kid,” she tries. “I want you to. I’ll always listen, even when we aren't going through… times like these.”

“I know.”

“So talk to me.”

“I don't have anything to say.”

“It doesn't have to be poetic or profound,” she urges. “Doesn't even have to make sense. Sometimes things just don't and that's fine. You could tell me about… I don't know… That Star Fighters movie or whatever I heard’s coming out if that’s what's on your mind. I don't care. Just talk to me.”

“Star Wars.”

“Same difference.”

Christopher burrows into himself. He looks so small and so tall; so young and so old. He rises slowly from the porch steps, crushing her in a single movement. A simple blow.

“I'm tired, Laura,” he says quietly. “I think I'm gonna go to bed.”

He returns to the house. The door cries in his wake and a hush descends over the farm that is not peaceful. Moonlight glistens along the edges of Rodney’s Ford. She tries to remember the last time she saw it in town but her memory is full of gaps when it comes to the Henris family. Laura sits there till the cigarette is close to singeing her fingers and the light in the kitchen goes out, leaving her alone with the moon.

Chapter Text

Simon and Wes come over sometimes. Christopher lets them in and they sit in his room and he answers when they ask him questions or direct statements at him.

I watched Saving Private Ryan with my sis. It was pretty good. You should watch it.

Okay.

Practice any new songs lately?

Not really.

We're gonna visit Danny later. You should come with.

Maybe.

He avoids eye contact with them—particularly Simon, who's always been able to see into places he shouldn't. Might be because he's the only one with glasses. He's like Laura: he always knows when he's being avoided and operates around it with iron-hot persistence. This time, though, he seems to avoid Christopher’s gaze the way Christopher is avoiding his. Simon brandishes his heart on his sleeve, and it is clear to see the battles in his expression—how he loses every one of them. Sometimes he looks as though he's about to put an end to the dreadful game of tiptoe they've all been playing, or like he wants to shake Christopher and scream in his face, but abruptly sinks in on himself with a change of mind. Christopher is fine with this. He does not want Simon's apologies, not for the argument in the woods or for anything else. Simon was right that day, as he is now and always will be. Christopher has resigned himself to always being wrong. He thinks was born that way.

Mariana comes by, too, but with less frequency as her parents keep her and Sofia under lock and key. Christopher, in an attempt to lower their chances of Rodney stumbling across them, usually leads her out to the barn where they sit on a blanket in the hayloft. He practices the same motions he went through with Simon and Wes an hour earlier. She asks him how his day’s been going, how’s work, how's life. Fine, fine, fine. Old rivalries and truces are cast aside and forgotten, and in their wake the wound is sticky and wanting. She keeps pressing her fingers to it, trying to get him to hold her hand—supposes that if he does, it means he hasn't bled out. She comes over one night and they sit on their blanket and the moon sets her hair aflame in silver and sepia. She says, “My parents want to move.”

“Oh.” Christopher does not know how to reply, but already he smarts with another loss. Years of avoidance, and he's only now getting to know her in the way he never allowed himself to. “That's nice.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know where?” he asks over the cicadas.

She shakes her head. “I know we should go—and it's for the best that we are—but I still want to stay. Just a little.”

“There’s nothing here worth staying for.”

“There's you.”

“I don't know what you see in me that you couldn't find better in someone else. You’re worth more than me, Mari.”

She looks at him, like the nickname caught her head in a hook. “What if I never see you again?”

“Then I guess that means you’ll have it good.”

They’re as close to each other as they’d been the day outside Danny's apartment, so there isn't much distance to cross when she leans over and presses her mouth to his, stars in her eyes.

He's surprised at first. Doesn't respond. Then he pushes her into the blanket and kisses the doubts from her pink mouth, rolling them between his teeth before he swallows them whole. Phosphorescence brands her in rectangles. The cicadas scream in his ear as she shackles her fingers in his hair and over his shoulders and under his shirt, and the floorboards give way to false stars. She moves like she can make him better with her touch alone.

Chapter Text

The trail has gone cold. Coldwater remains unbreached by further grievances, assembling crookedly into normalcy. Laura has picked apart every lead and stitched it back together, puncturing herself a thousand times in the process. She visited Emilio and she spoke to Raymond, who—while blatantly religious—had nothing incriminating on him. She's looked into every person Sofia went to high school with. She's scoured the yearbooks. She swept the Meridian Lodge with her deputies and briefed a special agent from the Missouri Bureau of Investigation: Nancy Keene, who specializes in ritualistic and ideologically driven murders. It could be anyone at this point, and she's run entirely out of variables. She sits in her Caprice and scrubs her hands down her face, forcing her fingers into her bangs. The shame she feels is not something that can be burnt away with the butt of a cigarette.

Laura steps out of her cruiser to a placid, ordinary evening. It's unusually warm for November, but the breeze heralds winter. Another thing for her to dread. Winter makes everything harder. She heads across the parking lot and turns the corner toward the sheriff's office and sees Rodney Henris leaning against the wall by the door. He turns his head in her direction, defeat and pained sobriety in the sweep of his dark eyes. It takes her a second to give him a questioning look and another to notice the blood on his knuckles.

Chapter Text

Christopher’s Harley putters to a stop outside Coldwater Cemetery. He leaves it in the grass and wanders inside, tripping. His ears are ringing. A cracked rib, a split lip, a swollen eye. Bruising along his jaw and contusions on his abdomen and thigh. A concussion from when Rodney slammed his head against the coffee table, though he doesn't know that yet. He hears his mom sobbing, begging her husband to stop. She seems to wake only when there is violence. He feels her hands threading through his hair, pulling his head into her lap as Rodney storms from the house and leaves him curled on the floor. She babbles to closed ears. You said ask and it shall be given. You said the son came home. Oh, God… Was he baptized? I can't remember—I can't remember… Just wake him up for me… Christopher, wake up… Please…

She might've thought he was dead for a second. He is alive, though, and not well, and passing by Danny's grave. He smooths his hand over the faultless headstone and wanders further into the maze of gray on green. Christopher runs his tongue over the face of his teeth and tastes the metallic tang of blood. He sheds pain like a second skin, stumbling to a row near the very back—a spot shaded by a tree. He isn't afraid to kneel in front when it's just a placeholder for a body, bowing his head and reading the name through a swollen eye as his knees hit the ground. JONAH HENRIS, it says. BELOVED BROTHER, SON, AND FRIEND.

Christopher sits with his brother, so far from himself that he is beyond the boundaries of space. Mariana had been sitting on the porch steps this morning, and when she had looked at him over her shoulder—crying—he realized the first mistake he’d made before she even said a word. His lip trembles.

“I'm so stupid, Jonah,” he cries. “I'm so stupid. I just keep being stupid, over and over again. I can't do anything right.” He scrapes the tears from his good eye. “I keep making mistakes. I keep failing. I couldn't save you, I couldn’t save Danny, and now—now I keep taking people down with me. I'm so selfish, I—I can't be a father. I'll ruin this kid’s life.”

That's what a drunk Rodney had said when he finally succeeded at prodding Christopher for details about the whore on the porch. After a long-winded laugh, he told Christopher that he would ruin its life, and in a rash show of defiance, Christopher made his second mistake of the day: insinuating that he could be a better father than Rodney—that he would not lose a child like he had lost Jonah. Rodney’s nostrils flared, and suddenly Christopher was breathless against the wall, doubling over from a punch to the gut, wheezing that he didn't mean it as Rodney’s boot found his ribs.

“Please,” he begs. “You have to tell me what to do. You have to make it better. I don't know how to live without you.”

Jonah is six years dead and seven years gone. He speaks through the retired trees and the paper boats children sail on the lake and every fragment of a song that gets stuck in someone's head. He is here, but he doesn't give an answer. Christopher closes his eyes, calling to mind every bad piece of himself for Jonah to frown at and God—if He is really there—to hold. His hands shake as he clasps them. He has shunned Him for so long.

“I don't know… I don't know if You're listening. I just—I don't understand. Why him? Why Jonah? Why not me? Why have You let all these people be taken? Why do You watch it happen? If You love us, how could You let Jonah suffer? And if You didn't love Jonah, how could You ever love me?”

Christopher lowers his head further.

“I don't need an answer, but… But if there's a reason, I'd like just a sign, or—or a feeling, or anything. Anything.”

“Christopher?”

He lifts his head to find Mr. Cotton standing behind Jonah's grave, a small bouquet of his multi-colored flowers in his hand. His complexion is paler than snow, his eyes bloodshot and his grip on the stems suffocating. His glasses magnify the widening of his whites.

“Oh…”

Christopher looks at the ground. “What are you doing here?” he rasps.

“For Jonah. I come by every month.” He pauses. “Were you praying?”

“I was.”

Mr. Cotton shuffles around the headstone and kneels beside Christopher. “I do, too, when I'm here.”

The flowers are inserted into a little glass vase. Mr. Cotton stays trained on the Bible verse engraved at the bottom of the granite. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

“I’ve never caught you around before.”

“I haven’t had the heart to come.”

Mr. Cotton glances at him. “What are you praying for, if you don't mind me asking?”

“An answer.”

“I've done that plenty of times.”

“Have you gotten one?”

“No. Not really.”

“Then why do you still do it?”

“Because I know He hears me. I simply don't deserve one.”

“…What do you mean?”

“My sins are too great for forgiveness, Christopher. That’s all.”

He takes from his coat pocket a cross: well-made, hewn of dark, varnished wood with a glass Jesus hanging in the center. He holds it between his hands and prays.

Christopher knows that cross. It is the exact same as the one in the woods.

Chapter Text

Laura is slamming the door of her Caprice when Christopher drives up to the station on his bike. She stills with her hand on the ignition, a relief like no other she has ever known filling her. He's here like a miracle.

“Laura!” he calls, voice like sandpaper as he throws down the kickstand and staggers toward her. She re-opens her door and steps out, taking in the horrible mess of his face. A rush of vindication fills her at the sight of his swollen eye and the blood crusted in his hair. Rodney had turned himself in when the alcohol wore off and he realized what he’d done. He thought he had killed his son, and for the drawn-out, horrible moment that came after he told her this, it was 1959 and she had learned that she would never see Paul again unless it was in a coffin.

“Laura,” Christopher gasps, just shy of slamming into her. She grabs his shoulders, loosening her hold at his wince. “The shadow—I think I found him.”

“What? Who?”

“Richard—Richard Cotton.”

Chapter Text

She sends deputies Lynn and Riggs to the cemetery. They radio in that no one is there—no Cotton and no car. Laura herself is speeding to his house on Wilson St. His banana-colored Pacer is parked in the driveway. She bangs on the door, but all is quiet. A terrified woman on the porch of the next-door house stares at her, gaping wordlessly. Laura heads over. Asks her what’s wrong. She says she heard what sounded like a gunshot from inside Richard Cotton’s house and was about to phone the police. Laura summons Lynn and Riggs to the scene, but she doesn’t have time to waste waiting for them.

The backdoor is unlocked when she tries it. Her hands slip from the knob to her Model 686, slick with sweat though this is what she was trained for. Every light is switched on inside. She has to maneuver around copious piles of shit and junk. It’s silent—too silent. She clears the living room and kitchen before reaching the bedroom. As soon as she pushes it open, the smell hits her: gunpowder and something acrid.

Richard Cotton lies on the carpet beside his bed. A .38 Special is limp in his right hand. Blood pools beneath his head, staining the carpet a deep, saturated black. The wound is clean but catastrophic—entry under the chin, upward. No note in sight. But there, on his desk: a Madonna in a glass of cloudy water.

Chapter Text

“Look at the camera—C’mon, Gabe—Okay, there. Stay right there. Say how old you are.”

 “I’m seven years old. And I’m turning eight in 18 days.”

 “And what do you want for your birthday?”

 “A new GameCube ‘cause I accidentally broke the old one.”

 “How’d you break it?”

 “I dunno.”

“What do you mean you don't know? You don't remember?”

A shrug.

“I remember. You were messing around with Daddy's things when you weren't supposed to and you spilled his coffee all over it.”

“Oh. Why do you remember that?”

“What do you mean ‘why do I remember that?’”

“‘Cause you're old. Old people forget stuff all the time.”

“What? I'm not old.”

“Yeah, you are.”

“Do you know how old Daddy is?”

“Like, 90, probably.”

“I'm 26.”

“Woah… You're gonna die pretty soon.”

“Wow, okay… Now I'm worried…”

“Huh?”

“You sound way too unconcerned.”

“I'd just stop you from dying so I don’t gotta be concerned.”

“How?”

“I dunno. I just bet I could stop it.”

“You gonna make me come back a zombie?”

“If I gotta, yeah.”

“How would you do that?”

“I dunno.”

“Well, hopefully you never have to figure that out. I’m younger than most dads, you know.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Mom’s younger than most moms, too. You’ll be stuck with us for a while.”

“Why’re you younger?”

“Uh… ‘Cause I was stupid. But also very blessed.”

“Why’re you blessed?”

“‘Cause being stupid gave me you.”

“Why?”

“How many times are you gonna ask why?”

“I don’t get it.”

“You don’t have to.”

“But I wanna get it. Oh, also! I want a bike for my birthday.”

 “You already have a bike.”

 “I want one like yours.”

 Christopher lowers the camera—a Canon ZR800—and straightens from where he’s bent over in the living room. Gabryle watches him, rocking back and forth on his feet. He chews on his lip and bites back a smile, the kind of kid who never stops twitching.

 “You can’t have a bike like mine,” Christopher says absentmindedly, looking through the pictures he’s taken: one of his son holding a garter snake in his muddy fist and one of him sitting at the edge of a pool and one of him being kissed on the cheek by his mother.

 “Why?”

 “‘Cause you’re too small. You’d fly right off by yourself.”

“They make bikes my size.”

“Midget bikes?”

Gabryle climbs onto the couch and starts jumping. “I ain't a midget,” he says, bouncing from one cushion to the next. It’s technically true. He seems to have skipped the awkward dwarf phase Christopher was relentlessly made fun of for in elementary school. Gabryle likes it because it allows him to go on most of the “big kid” rides at the county fair.

“Get down from there before you fall and hurt yourself,” Christopher orders, lowering his camera. He's still perfecting his look of fatherly disapproval.

“Jason's mom lets me jump on her couch.”

“Do I look like Jason’s mom?”

“Maybe if you wore a wig,” Gabryle snickers.

“Alright, enough. Down.”

Gabryle hops down without complaint and races into the kitchen. Mariana’s voice drifts free, clear and sweet as a bell. She rejects his request for another cookie but says she might consider it once they get home from the parade.

“But that's so far away…”

“I don't think you'll even want it anymore when we’re back.”

“That’s why I should have it now when I do want it.”

Christopher continues looking through his pictures, reminiscing though the memories are fresh. Mariana steps into the portaled archway transporting one from the hallway to the kitchen and twirls, the lace of her white summer dress blooming around her ankles. The straps are red-and-blue braided ribbons that twist into a bow at her breastbone. Her hair is dark, sinuous curtain down her back, lips a cherry cola.

“What do you think?” she asks.

Christopher looks up and smiles, setting his camera on the coffee table his father made for his mother many years ago. He walks over and wraps his arms around her middle. She twines hers around his neck, gazing at him through her lashes.

“I think you look even more beautiful than usual, Mrs. Henris,” he says lowly.

“And what will Mr. Henris do to prove that?”

Christopher draws her closer for a kiss. Gabryle, loudly draining a carton of apple juice in the dining room, wrinkles his nose when he catches sight of them.

“Gross,” he announces.

Mariana pouts at him over her shoulder.

“Your mother isn’t gross,” Christopher says, letting go of his wife to stand over Gabryle with his arms crossed. Gabryle blinks up at him, red bangs partially obscuring his eyes—dark like his mother's. Mariana had made a valiant attempt to brush his hair into something presentable earlier in the afternoon, but it has since reverted to its natural, semi-tangled state around his shoulders.

“Mom’s not gross,” he agrees, copying Christopher’s stance. “You’re the gross one.”

“Are you saying you won’t show your future wife you love her?”

“Nah. I just won’t kiss her.”

He shrieks elatedly when Christopher picks him up and throws him over his shoulder and carries him into the living room. “Put me down!”

“Nope. You just said you’re not gonna kiss your future wife. This is a moment of crisis.”

“Kissing’s gross!”

“She’s not gonna like hearing that when you’re at the altar.”

Christopher drops him onto the couch with an exaggerated flop. Gabryle bounces, hair flying into his face. He shoves it back and grins, cheeks flushed.

“That doesn’t make it not gross,” he pushes, only retracting when Christopher puts his hands to his sides and tickles him where he knows it’s worst. “Okay, I changed my mind! I changed it! Daddy, stop!”

Mariana grabs the keys from the hook by the door and slings her purse over her shoulder, smiling. The air conditioner in the window struggles against the Missouri heat.

“We’re going to be late if we wait any longer,” she tells them.

Christopher releases Gabryle, hauling him up by the armpits. “Can I bring my poppers?” Gabryle asks.

“You can bring three of them. The rest stay here.”

“But— ”

“No ‘but.’ You throw all of them at cats.”

“…Nuh-uh.”

“Uh-huh.”

“It liked them— ”

“Listen to your mother,” Christopher says, reaching around Mariana to hold the door open. In his other hand is the ZR800. She leaves first, Gabryle second—taking three boxes of snappers from their supply of bagged fireworks by the couch—and himself last, locking the door behind them. The farm glows in the onset of early afternoon, sunlight leaking through the cracks between the barn to the northwest—its red paint faded to a dusty rose—and the stable by the pasture. Gabryle tugs repeatedly at the handle of the Toyota Corolla Christopher had gotten Mariana for her 26th birthday. There’d been talk of rain, but the forecast said it’d hold off until the late hours of night. They should be in bed by then.

“Do you think they’ll cancel the fireworks if it rains?” Gabryle wonders, buckling himself in the backseat.

“Not unless it pours,” Christopher replies, shifting to reverse.

“I hope it doesn’t ‘cause I wanna see the Dixies and they didn’t show those last year. Also Andrew said his parents wouldn’t come if it’s gonna rain a lot and…”

He rambles about fire crackers and chili dogs and his second-grade acquaintances as they drive into town. Christopher listens over the staticky-tune on one of his CDs, nodding along in the summer-soft refraction of the driver’s side window. Mariana rolls down her own, letting the wind thread its fingers in her hair. She smiles at the rearview mirror as if they are in on a secret.

Chapter Text

Coldwater has held a Fourth of July parade down main street and a celebration at the park for as long as Christopher can remember. His family used to go when he was little—he and Rodney and Sally and Jonah all piled in the station wagon—but that came to its inevitable conclusion, as did all other good things from that era. Gabryle’s birth marked his return to the festivities, as well as other social gatherings he’d gone out of his way to avoid in his adolescence. Mariana wanted to take every opportunity to give her son wonderful memories, so ever since his first birthday they've lined up in their favored spot by the left-side diner and watched Gabryle dart for the candy tossed over the sides of the floats and fire trucks; a good number of kids usually flock around them because the Coldwater PD tosses extra candy at Christopher. There are few staples of the line-up: a tractor bedecked with streamers and kids flying tiny American flags; the Coldwater High marching bad in their green-and-white lapeled uniforms; vintage cars and motorcycles driven by aging veterans; horse riders in red, white, and blue shirts; and the Coldwater 4-H club showcasing their prized goats and lambs.

Once the floats have made their second run, Gabryle lifts with triumph the distended plastic of his bulging Walmart bag and proceeds to select his favorite pieces to eat on the walk over to the park. Christopher usually ends up carrying the bag and—later on—Gabryle himself, whose cheek melts against Christopher's shoulder with a delectable, world-warping warmth as he struggles not to fall asleep.

The fireworks show is nothing in comparison to this moment, but he must be patient as they select a tree to spread their picnic blanket beneath and get dinner from the food stands. Children's laughter reverberates from the squares and circles of which the metal playground is composed, interlaced softly with someone’s guitar cover of a country song Christopher couldn’t name if his life depended on it. Yard games are sprinkled throughout the area, trailers perfuming the park with the meaty scent of grilled burgers and hot dogs and sloppy joes. Local vendors and church groups sell lemonade and pie and homemade jewelry. Gabryle kneels in front of Mariana on their red-checkered blanket, waiting impatiently for her to finish smearing sun screen on his face. Christopher sits beside her, holding the tube.

“Hold still, Gabey, I'm almost done…”

“I see Dallas.”

“Dallas can wait a few seconds,” Christopher says.

“Jeez, you really wanna see Dallas before you see me?”

Christopher knows Wes is standing behind him before he even registers his voice. Gabryle lights up like a firecracker, crawling around Christopher so he can spring up from the blanket and fling himself at Wes. He makes an exaggerated oomph sound as Gabryle’s mass attaches itself to his middle.

“Hi, Snotface,” Gabryle greets.

Christopher looks back at them. Mariana huffs.

“Here we go again,” she accuses. “Already stealing him.”

“Whoops,” Wes says, entirely unremorseful. He ruffles Gabryle’s hair. “Hey, Booger. Whatchu been up to?”

“Eating candy.”

“Sweet. Literally. What’d you save me?”

“Nothin'.”

“Fine, you glutinous fart,” he says, glancing conspiratorially at the bag of candy by Christopher's leg.

Gabryle notices and punches him in the stomach. Wes jolts, caught off-guard.

“Jesus Christ, Chris, what are you feeding this thing— ”

“I ain’t a thing.”

“You’re both things,” Christopher says. “Thing 1 and Thing 2.”

“I’m Thing 1!” Gabryle crows.

“Woah, excuse me?” Wes objects, sounding genuinely aggrieved. “I’m the adult here. You're obviously Thing 2.”

“Adult is debatable,” Mariana interrupts.

The two glance at her. Wes whistles, lowering his voice. “Better get back to your mom before she shoots me.”

Gabryle returns to his spot in front of her so she can finish applying sun screen to his arms, pale against the black of his Harley-Davidson shirt. Wes settles in beside Christopher, sighing exaggeratedly. He promises to participate in a game of “Pin the Tail on the Wesley” after he gets some food in his belly.

“Those little maggots,” he complains as Gabryle wanders off to accost Dallas: a short, sandy-haired boy in an enormous pair of circular glasses whose mother Mariana had befriended late last year. “Why don't they ever ask you to be the weasel?”

“Hmmm… I wonder,” Christopher says.

“It's Wes. Wes. I should just legally change my name at this point.”

“Wesley doesn’t even sound bad. You’re overreacting.”

“You have no idea the hell I experienced in grade school because of my name, man.”

“Have you ever considered that you got bullied for other reasons?”

Wes kicks him in the shin.

“The children always want you to play with them because you can connect on a deeper level,” Mariana jokes, twisting her left arm around Christopher’s right.

“Hardy-har-har.”

“I wish they'd ask me to play as often as they do you.”

“Yeah, yeah… Whatever,” he grumbles, unbothered. Christopher knows Wes likes the way they flock to him. He would be a good dad, but he and his fiancée of three years and counting—Louise Ingram—seem in no rush to get married, let alone have children—despite having been engaged for four years. It’s a fact that drives Mariana up the wall. Simon himself is girlfriend-less and childless, and she'd hoped at least one of Christopher's companions would have a kid so Gabryle could have something like a sibling. Wes shrugs every time Mariana brings up the notion of a wedding. We'll get it over with at town hall one of these days, he likes to say. Louise is his female equivalent in that regard.

“Oh, shit, look what time it is,” Wes announces. “Thatcher o’clock.”

The group’s collective attention—as well as that of many in their vicinity—gravitates to the family coming in through the arched park entrance. The woman is tall and eye-catching in a ruby pinup dress and curls, the man severe in a white button-up and a black tie. Behind them are two children with hair as blonde as their parents: a small girl in a checkered skirt and a smaller boy in a sailor get-up.

“You know she’s a James now,” Mariana murmurs.

“Yeah, I guess…”

“She'll always be a Thatcher to me,” Christopher says.

As if she'd heard them from across the great expanse of green, the canary eyes of Grace St. James—formerly Grace Thatcher—lock onto Christopher and Mariana. She does a spectacular job of abandoning her husband and children and crossing over without making it seem like they’re her point of interest. Heads turn as she passes, as if she were an elegant statue carved from marble and come to life. Grace arrives at their blanket not much later and nods serenely, towering over them. A pearl necklace gleams around her throat.

“Christopher, Mariana, Wesley,” she says. “How nice to see you all on a day like today.”

Wes’s expression sours. Christopher does not return her smile. Only Mariana bothers to be hospitable.

“I would’ve said the same to you,” she offers. “Lovely, isn’t it? The weather, the parade, the people…”

“Yes.” Grace opens her white clutch and pulls out a gold cigarette case and matching lighter with an emerald inlaid in the center. “For a place like this, it is. They did much more over in D.C. This is much smaller in comparison, but very quaint. Would you like one, Mari?”

She holds out the case to Mariana. Mariana stares at it.

“She doesn’t smoke,” Christopher says flatly.

Grace takes no offense, taking from it a cigarette and snapping it shut and stowing it back in her clutch, igniting its end with the emerald-inlaid lighter. She holds the chosen cigarette up to her lips and breathes out a puff of smoke. Mariana and Wes wait with mounting discomfort for her to continue. Christopher is accustomed to Grace’s toying, a skill she has perfected with time.

“Where’s Gabryle?” she eventually asks.

“With his friends,” he answers.

“Hm. I hear he’s been causing trouble at Sunday School.”

Mariana frowns. “What? From who?”

“I’m well-acquainted with every person educating our children. He picks fights, apparently. It distresses Mercy.” Grace shrugs. “I wasn't too surprised when Mrs. Dotson told me, to be perfectly honest. He appears to be a bit of a wild card. But that’s expected considering his environment. Like to like.”

Christopher grits his jaw. 

“Environment?” Mariana prompts faintly.

“Oh, I mean nothing by it, Mari,” she says coolly. “Don't take it the wrong way. I just… Hmmm…” A thoughtful tilt of the head. “I couldn't imagine raising my children the way you raise yours. It's a very different way of living from mine. And filled with so many skeletons, to top it off. But there's a beauty to that sort of simplicity.”

Mariana’s hold on Christopher tightens. It reminds him of how—in his youth—his mom used to grip his hand during her conversations with Edith Thatcher, stiflingly tight. His skin couldn't breathe. He has no recollection of what was exchanged between them, only that it made Sally quiet and his dad angry on her behalf.

“That doesn’t sound like Gabryle…” she murmurs, choosing not to acknowledge anything Grace said beyond that.

“You never know what they're like when we aren't around.”

“That's true,” Christopher agrees. “I mean, we never had any idea what Will was really like all that time he was here…” He narrows his eyes at her. “Did we?”

Grace's demeanor breaks into something hostile—cornered. Her smile turns thin and sharp.

“I suppose that's right, isn't it?” She adjusts the strap of her clutch. “Well, then, I better get going. I have to watch after Mercy and Bryce. You all have a nice night.”

She struts away, dress bobbing. The crowd parts like water in the path of a swan. Wes wrinkles his nose.

“Bitch,” he mutters.

Neither Christopher nor Mariana disagree.

Chapter Text

Christopher buys Gabryle a hot dog he lathers in ketchup, then a second with ketchup and mustard, and finally a chili dog because Gabryle keeps acting like he’s starving. It probably won’t be finished, but Christopher likes to be safe rather than sorry. The chili dog goes half-eaten, as he expected, and is tossed in the trash later on in the night. Christopher cheers him on vigorously during the kid’s three-legged race and watermelon contest, the first of which is lost but the second won. Wes abandons them for Louise after being chased by Gabryle and the rest of the “maggots,” Sheriff Lynn occupies the hot seat of a dunk tank, and a pie-baking contest is judged by the town’s senior residents. At 6:00 P.M., old-timers and high schoolers dot the pink horizon for a game of baseball, the children chasing fouls as they ping over the sandlot. Gabryle sits on Christopher’s lap as they watch and chips at a vanilla-and-chocolate soft swirl ice cream cone dunked in brown syrup and sprinkles. Mariana wipes his chin with a napkin—functioning on instinct—and says he can’t have another when he inevitably asks for seconds, warning him about the dangers of a sugar rush.

The game ends on the coattails of 8 P.M. Mayor Henry Rose gives a short, but heartfelt speech at the park’s wooden pavilion, stickered and shaded from the blare of thickening starlight by black shingles—and the Girl Scout troupe performs “God Bless America,” badges ironed to the beryl straps over their chests. Veterans are honored with a standing ovation, and everyone swarms with their blankets and chairs to the open field that kisses the boundaries of the park. Christopher lights a sparkler for Gabryle with a punk as a man counts down over the PA system, Mariana’s head warm on his shoulder.

The fireworks themselves are modest, but they gleam upon the boy incandescently, licking his red hair like flame—a fevered vision that Christopher captures with his ZR800. Gabryle watches the gold willows and American bursts in awe, and stands transfixed on the finale of rapid-fire explosions. Memory, he’s found, is a stone not strong enough to hold against the sculptor’s slow carving of time. He intends to hold every moment that’s gifted to him and keep it laced forever in its box, without erosion or flaw, so he can hold it in his hands and it will be just as perfect as the day it was born—as the day he was given a son.

Chapter Text

In the minutes of stillness between Richard Cotton’s suicide and Christopher’s release from the hospital after Rodney beat him half to death, he'd went straight to Laura's house, where he sat in one of her plastic chairs and told her that he'd gotten a girl pregnant, and it was horrible because she wasn't even his girlfriend, and that he couldn't possibly be a father, and that he was fucking stupid. He so was so fucking stupid.

Laura was quiet as he rambled, taking drags periodically from a Marlboro. She waited for him to finish. It'd been morning, cloudless and cold.

You are fuckin' stupid , she said. But that doesn't mean you have to stay that way. You can't.

She gave him an exhausted look, without sympathy or reprimand. Just steady.

You made the decision that led to this baby, Christopher. You've fathered this girl's child. You have to take responsibility. You have to be there for them.

But—

You don't get to say ‘but,’ kid.

I'm no good for Mariana, Laura. Not for her or…

Then you should've thought of that before you slept with her.

He glanced at the ground, ashamed.

Christopher, Laura said solemnly, leaning her elbows on her knees. You act like you're at a point of no return, but the truth is you’re far from it. I’ve seen men a lot worse than you—people who’ve completely given up on everything they are and everything that matters. One of them I just put behind bars. He won’t be out for a long while.

I’m not any good just because there are worse out there.

That’s true. But you’ve still got time to be better. To do better. Maybe you won’t be perfect, but it’s showing up that matters. It’s when you stop trying that you lose your way, not when you fail.

I don’t know how…

Start by being there for her. Talk things out. Be honest about your feelings and intentions. Tell her the truth and keep tellin’ it. Own up and show up every damn day. Even when she’s mad. Even when you’re scared—especially then. It’s gonna be hard at first, but it gets easier with time. Caring’s a habit, just like anything else.

He’d studied his hands. The knuckles were scraped and raw. I don’t want to be like him, he murmured. I don’t want to be my dad.

Laura’s expression softened for the first time since their conversation had started.

Then don’t be. That’s your choice, Christopher. That’s the whole point. She stubbed her cigarette out on the ground. You’re not Rodney. I know the kind of person you can be—the person you are when you’re not trying to fight it. There’s a lot of good in there—you just haven’t learned how to show it properly yet. That’s something you can always learn, though, and this baby—this girl—you owe them a hell of a lot more than your regret if you don’t.

Christopher had spent the following week holed up in the house with Sally, trying to disentangle everything that had transpired since he’d discovered Danny’s body in the woods—before that, even, to when he’d discovered Will. The walls were hardly sturdy enough to contain the distorted jumble of his thoughts. It was inconceivable to him that Mr. Cotton—a man Christopher had admired and who’d been one of the few teachers he had any fondness for in his adolescence—could have killed Danny, or had a hand in what happened to Luanne. Hardest to swallow was Jonah, with whom they'd shared a reciprocity of favoritism. Jonah had been Mr. Cotton's beloved prodigy, and Mr. Cotton had been Jonah's treasured mentor.

Christopher didn't believe for a second that Mr. Cotton had been honest about the secrets Jonah shared with him. His brother must have believed he was someone safe to confide in, and whatever that confidence had been, Mr. Cotton betrayed it—found it punishable. Religious iconography had been found throughout his house during its investigation: another crucifix like the one first in the woods and the one he'd taken out at the cemetery; a heavily annotated Bible on his bedside table; a string of rosary beads buried at the bottom of a sock drawer. The Madonna on his desk was the most damning evidence, proving that he was likely connected to either the murders or the murderer himself. Christopher and Mariana hadn’t even considered the gifts in Sofia's locker to be from a teacher rather than a student. It was the truth most people had come to believe by the turn of the century—no one else had gone missing or stalked or dumped dead in a gully, and Coldwater was desperate for closure. It remained a small town at heart, but its infamy had skyrocketed throughout the state. Amateur detectives and conspiracy theorists drove down to see if they could call to light what no one else had thus far, while others were simply there to experience standing in Missouri’s “most cursed town” and hear firsthand the rumors about Richard Cotton, who had stolen Will’s spotlight. Some of them knocked on Christopher’s door in hopes of a firsthand account from “Detective Henris,” the alias everyone apparently knew him by outside of Coldwater. Without solid proof, however, no fingers could definitively be pointed.

Christopher, for his part, had retained a healthy dose of doubt. It was like looking down at a puzzle with the right pieces to the picture but the wrong dips and hooks to connect them, and it drove him mad. He didn't think Mr. Cotton was innocent—and he had been so certain that he was the shadow when he saw him holding that crucifix—but things made less sense the more time went on. According to Laura, Will remained adamant that he had murdered Jonah and Luanne alone, even showing frustration at the idea that he would have ever partnered with someone else. He was open about the pleasure derived from killing, and that he did not do it in God's name. This Christopher was inclined to believe, seeing as Will hadn't been particularly devout. He’d skipped church more often than not, and if he did go, it was because his parents dragged him kicking and screaming. Sometimes he even went out of his way to poke holes in Jonah’s belief system. It’d been one of his favorite ways to get a rise out of him, but he claimed to not mean anything by it. Will never outright denounced his religion, but he was nonetheless a horrible Christian, like most his friends besides Jonah were.

Christopher was also doubtful about the extent of Mr. Cotton’s involvement in the crimes. Like Will, Mr. Cotton had never struck him as religious. He could easily have been hiding it, but something about that didn’t seem right. What were his motivations, then, if not to punish sinners? Jonah being gay seemed the only reason why he would have been targeted, but even that Christopher could not wrap his head around.

Mr. Cotton’s autopsy revealed a scar from a bullet wound on his left shoulder, which aligned with the theory that he was the shadow Christopher fired at in the dark on December 1, 1991, but it also revealed that he’d had tuberculosis, Kaposi’s sarcoma lesions, and lymphoid tissue depletion; cachexia and low CD4+ T-cell counts—all unmistakable signs of late-stage AIDs. There was no explanation as to the circumstances surrounding its contraction, but it was proof that he was not so holy himself. He had never been married or been in a relationship with any women to Christopher’s knowledge, and considering the condition he’d been in when he died, Mr. Cotton had most likely contracted it in the 80s. He had a nagging suspicion that Mr. Cotton had been homosexual, but if he was, then why would he target Jonah for being the same?

Christopher had pondered the possibilities as threw out Rodney’s beer bottles and the cigarette pack on his dresser—as he told Simon and Wes that he was going to take a break from Redshift for a bit. They understood; none of them had really been feeling their music the way they had when Danny was still on his bass. He reflected as he continued his work at Harland’s Auto & Diesel and contemplated as he took on odd jobs, a good number of them forwarded by Laura. He ruminated as he put money into his savings and as he got his GED and as he bought food and clothes and trinkets for Mariana. He got to know her as well as he knew himself—that her favorite color was a shade between red and pink; that she only likes pickles when they were extra cold and crispy; that she was fiercely emotional and he was one of the few people who've never told her calm down or stop crying or to be rational. He took her out under a blanket of stars and they sat in the truck bed of Rodney’s old F-150 (now Christopher’s F-150) and asked her to be with him. He didn’t have money for a fancy ring, so the one he presented was a dull, modest gold band. Christopher promised to give her the kind she deserved once he had the money for it—the kind that glittered as bright as her smile in the sun—but she had slipped it on her finger and said that would not be necessary. She leaned up and kissed him, running her fingers through hair he had not bothered to cut in months. He could taste her fear blent with the sweet savor of hope, as tentative as buds in the spring of flowering dogwood. Christopher speculated as he fixed up the farm for them to live in, repairing fences and leaky roofs and outbuildings. Late nights at parties were shed for early mornings at the shop. He spent his off-hours sifting through old junk and restoring the barn and planting a small crop with the help of Travis Buchell, who Rodney had driven away at one point in the strangulation of years connecting 1991 to 1995 and who Christopher had reconnected with, apologizing to on behalf of his father.

By late spring, Christopher could no longer recognize the person he saw in the bathroom mirror. His hair had grown long enough to fall into his eyes and be tucked behind his ears. The holes of his piercings had closed over, their skeletons indented into his skin as half-moons. The shadows around his eyes had been swept off with the influx of rest, and though he was still pale, Ed no longer had cause to call him anemic. His cheeks had become dusted and sun-freckled, and it scared him a little, how much he looked like Rodney in his youth. Mariana’s parents weren’t fond of him in the slightest, but Mrs. Álvarez noticed the changes and pointed it out at a dinner he’d hosted for them at the farm. Her frigid countenance began to thaw, and cracked when he showed them the nursery he’d converted the guest bedroom into. He’d repainted the walls a lurid sage green and added a hand-stenciled border in February, and in March he had begun on a crib with wood salvaged from the barn. He’d placed it beneath the east-facing window in April so the baby could be caressed by morning light, and above he’d hung a mobile of twine and paper stars and beads. There was a repurposed dresser he had sanded down and decorated with handmade dividers for wipes and socks and onesies, as well as a worn rocking chair he’d brought upstairs from the porch but could not stop from creaking. Over it was draped a woolen quilt Mariana had made, white to match the borders. She’d sewn a crib bumper and sheets with fabric she found on sale. Mrs. Álvarez had stood in silence for a second—taking it all in—then started to cry. Christopher couldn't tell if they were good tears or bad tears, but she kissed him on the cheek on the day of the wedding in June—as cheap as the ring around the bride’s finger—and said she trusted him to take care of her daughter. He figured it didn’t matter so long as she was happy and he didn’t let her down.

Christopher had met Gabryle on July 22, 1999. In the hours leading up to their introduction, he’d paced around the hospital with his hands buried in his hair and Mariana clogging his ear with bids to sit down and shut up because his panicking was making her panic (as well as nauseous). He'd nearly passed out when he saw the monitors spike and the nurses filing in for an epidural and wondered how they could watch this again and again without feeling like the universe was re-aligning itself and they were all about to die. He called Laura in the men’s restroom, who calmly stated that she understood this was a very big moment for him but that he needs to get his shit together and go back to his wife. Next to his chair at Mariana’s bedside was a hospital bag he’d packed with all the wrong things in his sleepy haste: a flashlight, a VHS tape of the movie they’d watched before bed, and a flyswatter. As she slept off the epidural, Christopher wrote the names they’d chosen on a napkin to the muted beat of Bob Barker on the TV: Charlotte for a girl and Gabryle for a boy. Charlotte was the name of Christopher’s grandmother and Gabryle the name of a very dear uncle to Mariana. Christopher wasn’t fond of the spelling (apparently it was a combination of ‘Gabriel’ and ‘Doyle,’ the latter of which left a bad taste in his mouth), but Mariana had insisted that it wouldn’t be the same if they went the ‘ie’ route. She’d said they could pretend it was a combination of ‘Gabriel’ and ‘Kyle’ if he really didn’t like it, and he’d told her that did not make it any better as Kyle was the name of one of his high school bullies. Spelling, however, was the last thing on his mind at the moment.

The doctor announced it was a boy at 4:47 P.M. after a birth without complications. Christopher cut the cord with shaking hands, staring in complete disbelief at the slimy, squirmy, screaming alien a nurse had placed on Mariana’s chest. He sat with his hand on her back as the same nurse wiped the baby clean. Mariana rubbed her thumb up and down Gabryle’s arm, one of her tears diffusing into a spot of blood on his cheek. She looked at Christopher and asked if he'd like to hold him. Christopher nodded numbly.

His arms only took a moment to mold to the shape of his son, a whole nine pounds and two ounces. Gabryle was red-faced and furious—not delicate in the slightest—but his cries had ceased by then, and in the brief peace before Mariana's family arrived, Christopher had been filled with a certainty unknown to him since he lost his brother. It was as if a compass had been placed in his hands, giving him direction where he had previously been lost. He loved his son from the moment he saw him, but rather than say so, he asked Gabryle how the hell he had “fit in there.” Mariana whacked him weakly on the arm, smiling, and the nurses said he looked ready to walk out of the hospital on his own.

Christopher wonders, still, about Mr. Cotton, but he has since taken down the evidence wall in his room, where he moved a queen-sized bed for himself and Mariana to sleep and re-wallpapered the walls and cleared out the closet for his wife’s plethora of dresses and blouses and shoes—a collection he contributes to whenever she shows mild interest in an article of clothing. Sally had stayed in the master bedroom until her passing in the autumn of 2001, having grown progressively weaker over the years and losing grasp entirely on her consciousness. Christopher had prayed relentlessly for God to relieve her—to bring her back—but she was yet another person he had not been able to save. He dug her grave himself in the gelid afternoon air of October, where all death seemed to accumulate and glisten like an ichor he will never be able to clean his hands of. Christopher visits her whenever the urge arises, as he does today, and leaves a bouquet of roses at the collarbone of her headstone, remembering how necklaces used to gleam at her throat and light a room. He visits Danny and Jonah, too, and it’s the only time Gabryle’s boundless energy turns padded and soft. He asks about his uncle on occasion, but uses what miniscule restraint he has not to pry. Christopher doesn’t tell him anything he isn’t prompted to reveal. He sees Jonah in him so acutely that it hurts, from his smile to the faultless brownstone of his eyes. Sometimes he looks at his son and thinks of the locked bedroom across the hall—how it has been untouched since October 16, 1991, every remaining fragment of Jonah suspended in time.

Chapter Text

He wakes to a hand on his face, smacking the scruff of his beard. Christopher wrinkles his nose and swats at it lightly, rolling over in bed and pulling the sheets up. The hand pushes his hair back from his forehead—small and star-shaped—accompanied by a loud whisper.

“You need to shave.”

“I don't wanna shave,” Christopher grumbles.

“I want you to.”

“Mom likes it this way…” The red 5:31 A.M. of his alarm clock burns into his retinas. He squints through the dark of early morning. “C’mon, Gabe, there’s still half an hour…”

“Please?”

“What's going on…?” Mariana asks drowsily.

Gabryle pouts at him. Christopher sighs, bones creaking as he rises from his cocoon. He turns to Mariana and tells her to go back to sleep. Her breathing’s evened out by the time he’s pulled on a pair of faded jeans from the dresser. Gabryle dashes out and into the bathroom, gyrating. A precision razor for Christopher and a dulled Gillette one for himself poke of each fist.

“Did you know you’re like Eggman, Daddy?” he asks.

Christopher shields his eyes from the fluorescence of the mirror lights as he slumps in, still half-asleep. “Huh? The fat animal-abuser with glasses?”

“Yeah… That kinda sounds like Ed. But yeah.”

He snorts, taking out the stool beside the sink. “And why am I like him?”

“‘Cause you’re so slow.”

“I’m not slow. I’m sleepy. There’s a difference.”

“You’re sleepy ‘cause you're slow to wake up. I'm the fast one. I got outta bed in three seconds and I was waiting here for twenty minutes.”

“I think your math’s a little off there, Sonic.”

Christopher lathers shaving cream onto lower-face and neck, then switches on his razor. Gabryle steps onto the stool and dots the cream on his own face and neck and switches on the faucet, holding his Gillette under the hot guzzle of the brass nozzle. He glances often at his dad, trying to mimic his exact movements. Christopher trims his beard down to a light stubble, while Gabryle focuses on scraping clean each whip of white. They wander downstairs into the kitchen—damp from a washcloth—and Christopher sends Gabryle back up to deliver a buttered croissant and a cup of coffee and a bowl of yogurt with berries for his mom. He makes toaster waffles for himself and Gabryle, which they eat in the dining room. Rodney’s chair at the head of the table has been cleared away and Jonah’s old spot is now occupied by Gabryle, who kicks his feet back and forth and babbles about anything that crosses his mind (Super Smash Bros. Melee and Metroid Fusion, for the most part), syrup dripping from his chin. Christopher decimates it with one of the many wet wipes they have lying about the house.

 Early morning light slips through the cracks of the backyard chicken coop as Christopher gathers the eggs and Gabryle hops around in his rain boots, chucking feed at the ground and terrorizing the hens (or cuccos, according to him). They lumber out to the pasture to check on the cow—only one as they sold the others last winter. Christopher squats by the teats and squeezes the milk into a pail. Gabryle pets Bowser’s pale-pink nose (he insists on referring to their prize heifer by this name in spite of her anatomy) and rambles about dinosaurs—how the T-Rex isn't really all that cool compared to the Concavenator, which “Grandpa and Grandma probably saw once because the Concavenators lived in Spain.”

“They're way older than you, Daddy. They’re definitely gonna die soon.”

“You really need to stop saying that before the wrong person hears it.”

They check on Mariana’s vegetable patch of zucchinis, cucumbers, and tomatoes, and afterwards water the small oak sapling Christopher planted at the edge of their property when Gabryle was a toddler. Mariana’s sipping her coffee on the couch in the living room by the time they return to the house at 7:36 A.M. TV laughter chases Gabryle up to his room before his mom forces him to brush his teeth, and Christopher tugs Mariana up by her hand so he can kiss her. The way she laughs when he sweeps her up and carries her bridal-style into the kitchen is just as routine as anything else.

In the afternoon, he loads up his F-150 with his tool belt, some spare boards, and a sword-shaped wood chip Gabryle had found by the stable and gifted him in his jeans’ pocket, like a digger with a nugget of gold from the sandbars of Siskiyou County. He’s been rebuilding the deck of Ludwik Bukoski since late June and is continuing his work there as usual, Raymond O’Donoghue at his side.

Christopher’s former fantasies about Raymond’s involvement with Will and the murders have long been put to rest, chiseled down by time and familiarity. He knows Raymond as well as he does Wes and Simon, and out of the past decade, he's probably spent three years worth of accumulated days in the man's company. He’d learned that Raymond had been repairing a fence at the Dorsey farm the day Danny’s body was found; both Anders and Barbara Dorsey attested to this. It was on his way back that his truck had broken down. Raymond was the one who'd reached out to him when he was looking for work around town and gotten him into carpentry, and also the one who’d introduced him to woodcarving—who'd told him a truth about Jonah that Christopher had known for many years but refused to acknowledge.

It'd been a hot, sweltering summer day in 2002—much like now—and they were sitting on the curb and eating lunch after a long morning of setting floor joists for a new house on Smith Street. Christopher gnawed slowly at a cold-cut sandwich Mariana had made for him, lost in a murk of thoughts related to his mother and his father and his brother—of all he had lost brimming beneath the alms of all he had gained. It was like that some days. He didn't imagine that would ever change.

Raymond had eyed him, noticing his mood. You alright? he’d asked, chewing a cheekful of gas station pizza.

Yeah, Christopher replied. Just thinking.

He waited a minute. Want to talk about it?

To this day, Christopher isn't sure what compelled him to go on about his conniptions as he did. He struggled—and struggles still—to talk to anyone about Jonah, even Mariana. It was as if he were a puppet strung to the hand of a foul master. Maybe it was Raymond’s peaceful countenance that drew the admission from him, or the way his silence called someone to speak and promised no judgement. Christopher told him about his regrets, the guilt that constantly plagued him, and the pain of knowing that he might never find out what happened to Jonah, or truly have known him at all. Who was it he grieved: Jonah himself, or the brother he lost?

…There's something I think you should know, Christopher, Raymond said softly. About Jonah.

Christopher had looked at him questioningly. What about Jonah?

There was a day back at the start of senior year when I'd stayed after school… Don't exactly recall the reason why—pretty sure it was just it was a game night. Friday. Fourth win in a row. I really only remember what happened when I was leaving. He wiped the pizza grease from his hand onto a napkin, trying to find the right words. I passed by the music room on my way back from my locker and noticed there were a couple people inside… Two of them, to be exact. Jonah and Will. It was really late. I'm not proud to admit this, but… I was curious, so I stood outside the room and…

Eavesdropped?

Raymond nodded. Christopher couldn't blame him; he most likely would've done the same. He was always listening in on Will and Jonah.

I know it wasn't my place. I know I heard things that day I was never supposed to. He stared down at the road beneath their work boots. They were arguing about something—whether it was right or wrong. ‘I don’t want a sorry, Jonah. I want you.’

Raymond looked back up at Christopher, whose breath had been strangled from his lungs. I didn't hear the whole conversation, but I remember that exactly as Will said it. I haven't been able to forget. I mean, he’d added in a failed attempt at levity. There were a couple swears, but I omitted those.

Christopher swallowed. You kept that to yourself ? he’d asked in disbelief. All this time you—you never thought to tell anyone?

I didn't think it'd amount to anything… And if it really meant what I thought it did later on… I felt it wasn't my place to share. They were keeping it a secret and… I guess I thought I'd keep it for them. The things they already said about Jonah were already horrible… You know full well what happened when someone found it. But if anyone deserves to know for sure, it's you, Christopher.

Christopher’s appetite had completely evaporated. He'd set his sandwich down.

What'd Jonah say ? he asked finally.

What?

Jonah? What did he say?

Raymond laced his fingers. I don't know. I left before I could hear anything else.

Now, they are halfway finished with Bukoski’s deck. They continue where they left off on the sixth: installing more decking boards. Raymond mans the circular saw while Christopher checks spacing and alignment. Each pressure-treated board is pre-drilled to avoid splitting, then fastened with deck screws instead of nails for durability. They use spacers to ensure even gaps between boards. Christopher occasionally kneels by the edge to check if everything is flushed and squared. The surface boards are finished around 10 A.M., so they take a 15-minute break to stretch their backs and rest in the lawn chairs Bukoski left out. Raymond asks how Mariana and Gabryle are.

“They're good,” Christopher answers, and realizes too late that he's eaten up a good chunk of their time talking about Gabryle's recent interest in dinosaurs and how Concavenators had a narrow, pointed crest on their backs with an unknown function. Raymond just chuckles and says he appreciates the lesson.

Next, they measure and mark out the stairs: Bukoski wants a simple three-step access from the side yard. Raymond does the math and Christopher double-checks for code compliance and symmetry. Using a framing square and chalk, they lay 2x12s for stringers. The notches are cut with the circular saw, then finished clean with a hand saw. Christopher digs shallow footings for the stair landing, pours in gravel for drainage, and lays two paver stones. They install the stringers using metal brackets and lag bolts into the rim joist, making sure they're even and secure. Bukoski invites them in at noon for sandwiches made of thick bread, homemade pickles, and a strange mustard Christopher isn't particularly fond of, but that Raymond laps up. They cool off in front of a box fan in the living room of Bukoski’s quaint little house, Christopher flipping through one of his woodworking magazines. He asks about Polish folk design, showing him sketches for carved spindle patterns. Bukoski smiles exuberantly at them. Christopher takes a piece of whittled cedar from his shirt pocket and molds the contours of a tail and four legs; pointed ears and a snubby snout as Raymond and Bukoski chat about God and the boys overseas.

Back outside, they start on the railing post locations. The posts themselves are 4x4 and go at each corner every six feet along the perimeter. Raymond drills through the deck and fastens them to the framing using carriage bolts and washers for strength. While he handles the physical install, Christopher pulls out his carving tools from a canvas roll and begins figuring two of the rail posts on-site. The first gets a stylized eagle motif in reference to Polish iconography, while the second features a symmetrical rosette pattern. It’s passive, delicate work—he doesn’t expect to finish them today. As he works cross-legged on a tarp with wooden snowflakes drifting around him, Raymond pre-cuts balusters and lays out the top and bottom rails. They talk casually about President Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, drilling pilot holes, and how much wood prices have gone up. Christopher puts the final touches on the first post and sands it down by hand. Bukoski comes out with cups of lemonade, his eyes shining when he sees Christopher’s work. They tidy up tools, sweep off sawdust, and stack prepped lumber for Monday’s railing installation. Raymond bids goodbye as a “Bless you.”

Christopher arrives home at 5 P.M. dusty and sore from being bent over as he was carving. Mariana and Gabryle are in the front yard, the former reading a historical fiction on the porch and the latter crouched barefoot on the grass, smacking his knight and dinosaur figurines into each other with boom and pshhh and scree sounds. Gabryle’s head swivels up at the crunch of tires on gravel, abandoning his battle reenactment to launch at Christopher, who frees himself from the muggy confines of the pickup and takes his son in his arms. Mariana lowers her book, rising from the hanging bench to join them.

“Oh, man,” Christopher huffs exaggeratedly. “You’re getting really heavy. Soon I won’t be able to pick you up anymore, Gabester.”

“Yeah,” Gabryle says proudly. “I've been gettin’ stronger. I'm the only kid at school who can hang from the monkey bars for five minutes—at least I was last year and I'm pretty sure I will be this year if there's no one new, but even if there is I'd still be first ‘cause I'd increase my time to ten minutes.”

“The monkey bars, huh? Better be careful there. That's where I broke my nose when I was your age.”

“I’m really careful,” he assures, which Christopher automatically assumes to be a lie. “Super, extra careful.”

Mariana comes up and puts a hand on each of their backs.

“I see my favorite dust mite is finally home,” she teases. “How was work?”

“Long,” Christopher replies, setting Gabe back on his feet. Mariana slips her arm into his. “And unfortunately not over.”

“Well, you won't be getting back to it until you have the food I made you.”

“Wouldn't dream of it.”

They have dinner on the porch. Christopher leans against one of the balustrades so Mariana and Gabryle can sit on the bench. He's so hungry by 6 P.M. that he's usually the first to finish, anyway. Mariana nods along emphatically to Gabryle's lesson on the Concavenator and Giganotosaurus, asking questions as she thinks of them. Christopher shakes his head vigorously when he mentions Grandpa and Grandma, but it escapes Gabryle's notice and Mariana stares at him, flabbergasted.

“Is Mom one of the wrong people, Daddy?”

“Wrong people?” Mariana asks, looking accusingly at Christopher. Christopher shrugs awkwardly. “There's never a right person to say that about, least of all your grandparents!”

They listen attentively to her rant and apologize at the end. Mariana cools off enough to give Christopher a kiss on the cheek before she and Gabryle head inside, their dishes piled precariously in her hands. Christopher heads down the porch, weaving between the house and the garage, to where Sally's horses once resided.

The stable is small and weathered, tucked close enough to the side of the barn that it reflects its red paint, but separate enough to feel like its own space. The horseshoe-frescoed double doors that were built to accommodate the size of a horse-drawn cart now creak open not to reveal the mares and steeds of Christopher’s childhood, but what he has built out of their memory: a workshop where he can carve and craft.

He props one of the doors open with a cinder block and a small side window used for ventilation with a stick, allowing cool night air to circulate throughout the building as he heads for the massive workbench against the far wall, made from repurposed wood. Upon it are chisels, gouges, and carving knives lined in a magnetic strip, as well as several clamps and vices, one of which has a small, unfinished toy horse caught inside; to the right is a well-kept table saw and lathe. The shelves above cast spots of glass-light on him, trapping spools of screws, twine, and wood glue.

A side wall piles pine, maple, cherry and the occasional scrap of black walnut on metal racks—the same stands vertical in the old horse stalls. Some of the planks have Post-It notes to give them purpose: Bukoski railing, Mariana shelf, Gabe stool. In one corner is a large hickory chest he made himself to hold carved pieces: animals he's been fashioning for Gabryle, a jewelry box he plans to give Mariana for Christmas, and wooden crosses he's been commissioned to make for the First Baptist Church (it also held the GameCube Christopher had gotten Gabryle for his birthday). The biggest of his current projects, however, is to the left side of the shop, propped up with several saw planks to acclimate. It consists of two honey-oak beams joined using a half-lap, fitted snug and reinforced with glue and dowels. The edges have been beveled by a hand plane and sanding block, smooth to the touch. A cross to stand at the front of the sanctuary, behind the pulpit.

Christopher takes from his collection a #9 sweep gauge, a 1mm V-parting tool, and a pencil for tracing. He angles a bench light toward the cross, sharpening both the sweep gauge and V-parting on a leather strop. He draws a lily motif on the top and arm ends, as Reverend Cates requested. An odd guilt ignites him when he drags the lead back and forth on the grain. Christopher does not know where he stands with God anymore. He's raising his son a Christian, he goes to church every Sunday, and he prays with his wife at night, thanking Him for a life he doesn't believe he deserves. But a part of him doubts—a part of him rallies, still, and cries selfishly for understanding. He doesn't question the existence of God so much as he does his benevolence.

There’s no more justice waiting at the end of this road, his dad once told him. There’s just us, and how we keep failing each other, and how we live with what’s left. He thinks of it more than he should.

Christopher makes soft, shallow gouge cuts to define the petals and curves of the leaves. He periodically pounds with a mallet for controlled pressure, and wraps sandpaper around a dowel for inner wells as smooth as the cross’s edges. His mind is far from his work. Carving brings him peace as much as it does discomfort—either from the idea of messing up, or because it forces him to be alone with his thoughts for hours at a time. He doesn't hear the swish of fabric heralding Mariana's arrival, but neither is he surprised when she encircles him from behind and presses her cheek to the back of his shoulder.

“Gabryle in bed?”

“Not yet. He's been passed out on the couch since dinner.”

“Been a long day for him…” He finishes the tip of a leaf and dusts it off. “Up before either of us…”

“You have to teach me how to do all this someday.”

“Sure,” he answers. “I’ll teach you anything you want—if you can pay up, of course.” 

“You’re not supposed to charge your wife for things.”

“Just one fee.”

She sighs. “What's the price?”

He sets his tools down on the rolling cart at his side and turns around, holding Mariana’s waist in his hands. Christopher commits her features to memory, as he has every day since she moved in with him. He could recognize her in a sea of people or a cosmos of dark, when all memory and earthly desire has turned back to dust. It fascinates him, how she changes day by day but remains his anchor—beautiful with or without her rouge.

Mariana looks away from his sheepishly, a blush reminiscent of their childhood rising to her face. “The price, Christopher?”

He hums thoughtfully. “Just this,” he says. “Letting me look at you.”

She scoffs. “I thought I was the sappy one.”

“The most beautiful woman in the world deserves appreciation, what can I say?”

“That’s very mean to the most beautiful woman in the world.”

“The one in my arms? ‘Cause I’m pretty sure there can't be two of them…”

She makes a long face at him and dances out of his grasp, observing the cross at his back and moving in close to take in the finer details.

“You know there aren't any other contenders, Mari,” he tells her, watching her watch his work. Mariana, for all her confidence, sometimes needed to be told the things she can't see. Christopher takes that duty seriously.

“There are lots of pretty women out there, Christopher,” she says, so absently she might not even be talking to him. “Prettier than me.”

“I guess there are plenty of nice-looking people in the world, sure,” he agrees. “Prettier than you, though? No.”

“It’s true. Everywhere. Here.”

Christopher frowns. “Is this about something?”

She doesn't reply. He comes up beside her, tucking a tress of hair behind her ear. “C’mon, Mari,” he coaxes. “Tell me.”

Mariana glances to her left, at the hickory chest, at the floor—anywhere but Christopher. “I keep thinking about Grace,” she admits. “Ever since the fourth, I just… I feel so… Inadequate next to her. She's so put-together all the time, and she has all these opportunities and all this money and… I feel like she can do more for her family than I ever could for ours.”

Christopher hears what she doesn't say. It's the same thing Sally's silences used to scream. The Thatchers will always have it better than us. Better houses, better cars, better money, better lives for their children. Wayne has never had to work for what he has; he'd been born with his father's bills in his hands, as had his father before him.

“Don't listen to her,” Christopher says, cupping her cheek. “That's what Grace wants you to think—what she wants you to feel. I guarantee that's not what things are like up in that mansion of theirs. It's only pretty on the surface. Everyone in that family… They all end up miserable.”

Mariana leans her head on his chest and presses herself into him, but continues to avoid his eye. “It’s silly, isn't it?”

Christopher holds her. “Not at all.”

“I wonder how your brother and Will became friends. It doesn't seem possible.”

“I don't really know, either.” 

She plays with a loose thread in his rolled-up sleeve. “I asked Gabryle about what Grace told us, you know… About causing trouble with his classmates. He didn't admit to it, but I think she was telling the truth.”

“Really?”

“He's a terrible liar. And some of those kids, young as they are… They just aren't nice. I can tell.” She finally looks up at him, pleading. “I’m scared for him, Christopher. I don't want Gabryle to have to go through the same things you did when you were younger.”

Neither does Christopher. It's something he fears.

“I’ll talk to him,” he promises. “I won't let it get to that point.”

“Alright.” She smiles faintly as her lips touch his, the pressure sweet and swift. “I love you.”

“That’s what makes me so lucky. And Mari?”

“Hm?”

“You still haven't convinced me you're not the most beautiful woman in the world.”

She swats him on the arm.

Chapter Text

Christopher’s always had to be frugal with money, even when he was living under the income Rodney made from their dwindling farm. The Henris family has had financial struggles ever since his dad was a boy, and that hasn’t changed with time. In 2002, however, he’d allowed himself to replace his Harley-Davidson Sportster 883 with a second-hand FXD Dyna Super Glide from 1995. The bike is black with a matte chrome trim and custom flame decals from the previous owner that Christopher isn’t too fond of, but has decided to keep on, and the engine bears a deep, obnoxious, throaty growl that calls attention to itself. The main reason he’d chosen it is not for any of the aforementioned details, but because it seats two people and has a backrest for the passenger.

“Okay,” he says, the Super Glide reverberating through his body. “What’s the number one rule?”

“Don’t ever let go of you no matter what,” Gabryle recites, vibrating almost as badly as the bike with excitement.

“And…”

“And if something’s wrong, tell you right away.”

“Good.”

Christopher kicks up the stand and revs the engine, prompting Gabryle to squeal in delight. Mariana waves at them from the porch as they take off, a wrinkle of worry in her forehead. She's always afraid that Gabryle will get hurt whenever he rides along with Christopher—a very valid concern her husband shares. He’s stern about Gabryle wearing a helmet and only goes 15 mph on backroads; 12 on gravel. Gabryle—with his limited experience—has yet to realize how slow they're actually going, but Christopher has recently started to suspect he’s been catching on. He begs his dad to go faster than usual, his platitudes shaved by the wind and the hot blare of sun on their backs. Christopher gives in and pulls on the throttle. They shoot forward at 25, poofs of dust footprinting their journey and erasing it again as they dissipate into the blue sky. Gabryle laughs happily, gripping Christopher’s shirt so tightly his fingers will have to be pried off.

“Wanna drive?” Christopher asks. He is met with an enthusiastic, “Yeah!” so they switch spots on Route 12, which was decommissioned in 1989 after the highway rerouted traffic and is laced with hundreds of trees. Christopher lets Gabryle ride in front at 40 mph, long enough for them to reach Murphy's Fill-Up & Fix-It. Christopher helps Gabryle bring the bike to a stop and lets him run down to the station, following at a crawl on the Super Glide. He parks between the pumps and a dusty, washed-out building, its garage bay doors partially caved in—crinkled like paper in someone’s fist. They feast on the curb in front of the abandoned Murphy's, sipping from bottled water as if they were goblets and tearing into ham sandwiches from the saddle bag and cracking the dry air with music on a small, portable CD player. Gabryle chose Toxicity for today's excursion collection because he thinks the vocals are funny. Some of his other favorites are Hellbilly Deluxe, a custom mix of Guitar Hero II songs Christopher burned onto a CD for him, and the demo Redshift recorded before Simon went to university in the Twin Cities. Gabryle frequently complains about how they didn't release it.

“You could be famous by now and we’d be rich and we’d probably all live together in a mansion like the Thatchers,” he fantasizes, muffled by the ham sandwich.

“There's a couple problems with that,” Christopher says sagely, twisting off the cap on his bottle.

“Like what?”

“Well, we probably wouldn’t be famous, for one— ”

“You dunno that— ”

“And I do not want to live in a house like the Thatchers. Or with Wes and Simon.”

“I wanna live with Wes and Si.”

“That’ll change when you realize they're incapable of putting their shi— ” He clears his throat. “Stuff away. They smell, too.”

“That’s okay. I struggle with that sometimes.”

“With being stinky? Yeah, that's true.”

“No! With putting my stuff away.”

“You're seven. They're almost 30.”

Gabryle shrugs. “It's hard. Also, I wanna live in a house like the Thatchers.”

“Ours isn't good enough, huh?”

“I didn't say that! It just looks like theirs has a lotta room. And I heard it has a pool. Imagine being at a pool where you never gotta wait in line for the slide.”

“I don't imagine theirs would have a slide.”

“Why? I thought all pools have slides.”

“They should. But the Thatchers wouldn't ‘cause they hate fun.”

Gabryle chews on this bit of wisdom. “Yeah… I guess that's true. What about a diving board?”

“Not even a diving board.”

“Wow… That's boring. What are you even supposed to do if you can't go on the slide or the diving board?” He scarfs down the rest of his sandwich and licks his fingers. Mariana would throw a fit if she saw it. “At least there wouldn't be annoying people around.”

Christopher glances down at him, hoping for an opening. “Annoying people?”

“Yeah.”

“Like who?”

Gabryle meets Christopher gaze, something like suspicion in the brown of his irises. He looks away and tugs at his shoe lace. “I dunno,” he mutters. “Anyone.”

“You like going to the pool with Jason and Dallas.”

“I don't mean them…”

“Who do you mean, then?”

“I dunno.”

“Gabryle…” Christopher nudges him gently on the arm. “You can tell me if something’s going on.”

“Nothin’ is going on.”

Christopher lowers his sandwich. “Is it that Mercy girl? Is she bothering you?”

Gabryle seems a little startled at that. “Huh?”

“You know, Grace's kid. Is she picking on you? Because I understand what that feels like, and the Thatchers… They always seem to have it out for— ”

Gabryle springs up from the curb. “I wanna play hide-and-seek,” he announces.

“What?” Christopher frowns. “Wait, we’re not done yet— ”

He goes unheard as Gabryle dashes around the corner of Murphy's. Christopher swears under his breath and stows the rest of his sandwich in their shared lunch box, snapping the lid shut so it won't spoil and cutting Serj off mid-lyric. He hurries in the direction Gabryle went, past forgotten tires and rusted car parts, determined to finish their conversation.

“Gabryle!” he calls. “We can play later! I wanna talk first, alright? Gabe, c’mon!”

Christopher circles the entire Murphy's, frown deepening. He passes a phone booth with shattered windows and a faded Coca-Cola vending machine Gabryle had kicked during past visits, like that would resurrect it from the death of disuse and spit out a pop. He tries the doors to the building—front and back—but all of them are locked and he can't think of anywhere else he could be hiding.

A breeze sifts through the branches canopied beyond the edge of the property. Christopher turns to its whisper, coming face-to-face with a being that has haunted his sleep more than any fabled monster or demonic force from the Bible. A fear that has never been fully extinguished torches his ribs as he heads toward it. He rips into the epidermis of the woods, peering around trees and the thick undergrowth that crops up no further than five feet in. He chants Gabryle name, beckoning him to come out—to stop messing around. He receives nothing in acknowledgement but the whistling winds and the horrid, wretched silence of a December lost to the indomitable cycling of seasons. Christopher’s heart stops in his chest, panic burgeoning in his throat and making it a struggle to get out his son's name.

“Daddy?”

Gabryle's voice trembles out from his right. Christopher chases it, a moth a flame—a shadow seeking the balance of light—and nearly buckles when he finds Gabryle standing at the edge of a dip where the woods lower, chiseled roughly flat. He's staring below, arms tucked at his sides. Christopher grabs his shoulder and spins him around, kneeling at his level.

“What the hell do you think you're doing?!” His fear sharpens his words, making them unrecognizable. “What do I always tell you? Huh?”

No reply.

“You can't go in the woods—not without me. Do you understand?”

Gabryle gapes at him silently, eyes huge the way they get when he's scared. If it's because of Christopher’s anger or from being lost or from something else, Christopher doesn't know, and though it will eat at him like a festering miasma later that night, he can't bring himself to care at the moment. Gabryle doesn't try to protest or explain himself; he merely nods, wrapping his arms around Christopher’s neck as he's picked up and carried back to the service station. He does not speak on the ride home.

Chapter Text

Gabryle is quiet the rest of the day. He plays in his room without the boom and pshhh and scree sounds. He pokes glumly at his broccoli during dinner, then goes back to his room. Mariana tries luring him out with a desert of Oreos and milk and is shocked at his rejection.

“That always gets him out…” she says as she’s coming down the stairs.

Christopher—sitting on the couch they replaced Rodney’s pleather one with—sighs deeply, dragging a hand down his face. “I shouldn’t have yelled at him.”

Mariana takes the cushion next to him, her thigh pressed to his and her hand on his back. “It’s alright. It was a heat-of-the-moment thing, you know… He shouldn’t have gone in there like that, anyway.”

“Really?”

“Well, yes… He knows not to.” She tilts her head. “Why?”

“I don't know. I just… I wonder, sometimes…” Christopher murmurs. “I wonder if I'm being paranoid. Afraid of something that isn't there.”

Mariana purses her lips, concern in her brow. Her hand rests on his shoulder. “It’s alright to be afraid. I am, too. I always will be. After everything that's happened… I don't know how to be any other way, and I didn't even lose anyone close to me. I can't imagine what it's like for you.” She brushes his hair back from his eye. “But at least Rick is gone, and Will. Knowing that gives me a little peace. They can't hurt Gabryle or anyone else—not anymore.”

Christopher wants desperately to agree, but to do so would be a lie. There's room only for fear in the absence of certainty. He smiles wanely at her, kissing her on the mouth as he rises from the couch.

“Christopher?” she asks, watching him head for the door. “Are you going somewhere? It's a bit late to be heading out…”

“Laura’s,” he answers, pulling on his boots.

Mariana returns his smile. “Alright,” she says. “Don't stay out too late,” and with a final kiss she sends him off. Christopher takes the F-150 into town; rust stains her joints and corners—sometimes she hacks a cough before she starts and her mileage is off the charts—but Rodney kept her in good condition, unlike everything else in his life. She rumbles smoothly down the cracked asphalt lines of Coldwater, buoying him past the grain elevators and along the river of the Main Street. The white lines of faded parking spaces reach languidly for the tires and moon-shadows cast by wooden and brick storefronts draw him under and spit him out. Laura's house beckons him after a right turn at the end of Main Street—not because it's inviting, but because of its familiarity. The only personality the house itself has is its baby-blue siding and white shutters, giving it the picturesque look of a family home, the kind of place a father and mother would raise their son and daughter in and drive home from church to and play baseball in the front yard at. Laura has no such life, however, and so it sits plain and dead most days. Christopher parks at the curb and heads up to the door, weighed down by his thoughts.

It takes her a while to open, but he knows it's not because she was sleeping. Laura answers in a Washington University shirt and her hair still in its ponytail. The harsh blankness of her expression melts when she sees him on the front steps.

 “Hey, kid.” She peers around. “Gabe in bed?”

“Yeah,” Christopher says. “Soon.”

Laura reads the look on his face and turns inside.

“Lock the door behind you,” she orders.

They end up in the lawn chairs at the back, so old they could probably be donated to a museum. Christopher knows Laura’s house as well as he does the one at the farm—he’s crashed on her futon and watched Survivor on her TV more than he has on his own and has had to retrieve Gabryle from her room just as many times. He's eaten burgers at her kitchen counter and vomited in her toilet from teenage hangovers. They always gravitate back to the white plastic chairs, though. The dirtiest parts of themselves have been planted in this yard; they sprout as blades of grass and weeds and dandelions.

“What's on your mind?” Laura asks, tracing the rim of a water glass with her thumb. Christopher still feels surprised whenever he sees her with something other than a cigarette in these late hours. The last time he saw her smoke was on a similar night in 2000.

“I yelled at Gabryle today,” Christopher says, watching stars poke holes in molasses clouds.

Laura grunts. “Bad yelling?”

“I don’t know.”

“If it’s got you all up in knots like this, I’m gonna take a wild guess and assume it was worse than the usual raising-your-voice stuff.”

“I feel like it was.”

“What was the reason? What’d he do?”

“He went into the woods without me knowing. Just…” He breathes in deeply. “Without me.”

“And you were panicking?”

“Yeah. There one minute and gone the next.”

“I see…” Laura shifts in her chair. “Well… What’s done is done, Christopher.”

“That’s it?”

Laura pretends to think as she takes a sip of water. “Yeah,” she decides. “Pretty much.”

He sulks at her like a child.

“Can’t go back in time, can you?” Laura questions, leaning back. “You reacted emotionally. It makes sense, considering your circumstances. Hell, I might’ve done the same. That’s how I feel every time I hear or come across one of you damn Henrises in those woods. You just gotta talk about it with Gabe, if you haven’t already. Tell him you’re sorry you had to shout at him but that you’d be even more sorry if something happened to him in there. Remind him of the rules. It’s not like you’re doing this every day.” She narrows her eyes at him. “Unless…”

“No,” Christopher quickly denies. “No, of course not. Never.”

“Yeah. Like I said.”

“I don’t like how he looked at me, Laura.”

“How’d he look at you?”

“Like he was scared.”

“You were scared, too, Christopher.”

“But… I don’t want to scare him, and I don't want him to know I'm scared, either… I just… I don’t know how to make him understand.”

Laura nods slowly. “You don’t want to scare him,” she repeats. “But you’re terrified for him every day. Where’s the sense in hiding that? It’s just gonna wear you both down over time, so stop pretending you’re not. It won’t make you any less of a man to admit your fears, I promise. You can be honest with him.”

“He’s seven.”

“Eight pretty soon.”

“He looks up to me.”

“Every dad’s a Superman to his kid, and every Superman worth his shit’s got his own Kryptonite.” She fixes him with a look he’s well-acquainted with. “You think he doesn’t know something’s off, Christopher? What’s happened to your family is gonna become impossible to hide these coming years—he’s gotta already have some sort of idea. Kids are smart. He’s not a baby anymore. You don’t have to burden him with all the gory details—that’s not what I'm saying—but you do have to talk to him like a person. Otherwise he’s gonna make up his own reasons for why you’re angry and I promise you they’ll be worse than the truth.”

Her advice hits him hard. He’s dreaded the thought of telling Gabryle about his uncle—what happened to him and why he lives at the cemetery. Jonah is a scar that runs across his entire body, inside and out. Talking about him is like cutting it open, from the first seam to the last.

“Okay,” Christopher agrees, eventually. “I’ll talk to him.”

The cicadas start a chorus. They don’t speak for a time, but it isn’t awkward or uncomfortable. It never is with Laura.

“How’d he end up out in the woods, anyway?” Laura wonders, having reached the vestiges of her drink.

Christopher sighs. “I took him to Murphy's. We were just sitting there talking, y’know… I thought I could find out if something's going on with the kids around town. If they're picking on him.”

“Ah, yes… Murphy's. Where teenagers go to get high and be sexually immoral.”

Christopher looks at her, surprised. “What?”

“Jesus, you were 19 like last week. I’m keeping up better than you and I’m in my 60s.”

“I’m past that phase, alright?” Christopher protests. “No one's ever around when we're— ”

“I'm pulling your arm. That's only after six o’clock. So what'd he say? How’d that lead to all this?”

“He said ‘I dunno’ a lot. Then he tried to rope me into a game of hide-and-seek and I lost track of him. That’s about it.”

“Damn.” The lines on Laura's face are etched with trouble. “So you think he's getting picked on?”

“Mari does. I trust her intuition. I wouldn't say it's all that hard to believe, anyway.” Christopher leans his elbows on his knees and clasps his hands. “Just another old Henris-family curse.”

“Aw, c'mon now, Christopher,” she chides. “Don't think that way.”

“I mean—It's true, isn't it?”

“I won't have you jinxing my godchild.”

“But it's history repeating itself, Laura,” Christopher insists. “You know why my dad didn't like Wayne? Well—besides everything else?”

“I’d hope so, seein’ as I went to school with them.”

“So you know Wayne gave him hell back in high school?”

“Mhm.”

“Rodney was his opposite. In every way, Laura. And it was the same with Will and Jonah. Will might not have been mean to him outright, but he surrounded himself with people who looked down on Jonah, even before Marissa started spreading rumors. That's pretty shitty of him, if you ask me. And Grace has always treated me like a cockroach—both her and her 50 boyfriends. All the Thatchers despise me ‘cause I'm the only one left to hate, but her especially. I keep calling attention back to their skeletons. It's not my fault they leave them out in the damn open…” Christopher flops against the backrest of his chair, crossing his arms. “God, I wish she'd stayed in D.C.”

Laura sets her cup on the ground. “You think the same thing’s gonna happen with her kids.”

“I don't see why not.”

“Well… It's definitely something to keep an eye out for. They're still young, though, Chris. Maybe things’ll turn out differently this time.”

“Maybe,” Christopher mutters. He doesn't believe it. The Thatchers’s vileness is as generational as the Henris's bad luck.

Laura pats him on the knee and rises from her chair. “Focus on having that conversation with Gabe for now. I'm gonna ask him about it next time he's over, so don't think you can hold it off.”

Christopher stares at her. “You're kicking me out already?”

“Yup. No more late nights for me.”

“Really?” He watches her duck leisurely inside the house. The light by the door flickers, dipping her in and out of darkness. She shakes her head at it like it's funny. “Why?”

“Haven't felt the need for one in a long time.”

Chapter Text

Christopher returns home under a moon at its zenith. He slips into the house like vapor, locking the door quietly and tugging off his boots. He jumps when a small voice calls to him from the darkness of the living room.

“Daddy?”

Christopher wanders in, pulling on the string to a lamp by the out-of-use landline. A figure as small as the voice sits up from a sprawl on the couch, crawling to the arm rest.

“Gabryle?” Christopher asks softly, stepping further into the room. “What are you still doing up? It's almost ten.”

“I was staying up for you.”

“Did you ask Mom?”

“I snuck outta my room.”

“Aw, well… I'm here now. Let's get you to bed.”

Christopher tries to pick him up, but Gabryle shakes his head and falls back into the couch. He's a pale sliver against the brown—a little slice of moonshine. His eyes are the same color as the fabric. “I wanna say sorry.”

“Oh.” Christopher sinks beside him, hands falling loosely over his knees. “I wanted to say that, too.”

Gabryle stares at him, unreadable in the halo of lamplight. Christopher shuffles, unable to tell what he's thinking. Is he wondering how to continue his apology or waiting for his father to go first? Christopher clears his throat, the silence too heavy on him.

“I'm sorry, Gabryle, for yelling at you the way I did. I didn't mean to lose my temper like that. It was… ” His wife comes to mind. “It was a heat-of-the-moment thing. You get what I mean?”

Gabryle nods.

“Yeah. Yeah, that… I guess… I wasn't so much mad at you as I was mad at the action itself. The woods aren't safe, Gabryle. You have to understand that. Bad things happen to people out there. Bad things happened to people I knew. People I cared about.” Christopher bumps him lightly on the shoulder with his fist. “And you're both those things. I don't want something bad to happen to you, too.”

“Like what happened to Uncle Jonah?” Gabryle asks quietly.

“…How much do you know about that?” Christopher questions, Laura's warnings thorning into him. He hadn't anticipated having this conversation so soon.

Gabryle gazes down at the crack separating their respective cushions. “I know he died out there,” he mumbles. “Someone shot him. Like a deer.”

Christopher’s expression takes on a subtle alarm. “You know about that?”

“That's what some of the people at school tell me… Or when we're playing after church. Or when Mom takes me to their houses so we can hang out. Some of them are mean about it… They say our whole family's crazy or something and that I should watch out.”

“What? Who says that?”

“Anthony. His older brother. Tommy.” He pauses. “Darren Hicks.”

“Of course it's a Hicks,” Christopher grumbles, thinking of Jude of the tampons he'd stuffed in Christopher’s locker. “This is what I wanted to know, Gabryle—what I was asking about earlier today. I— ”

Gabryle suddenly sniffles, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. Christopher softens instantly, shifting over the crack so he can pull Gabryle into his side. He fits easily beneath Christopher’s arm, if not more snug than he has in the past.

“I thought you hated me, Daddy,” Gabryle warbles, burying his face in Christopher's shirt. “When you were shouting. I thought you were mad all day and you were done with me and stuff.”

“I could never be done with you.”

“I'm sorry.”

“I’ll accept your apology if you accept mine.”

Gabryle's head rubs along his ribs—a nod.

“Okay, then. Apology accepted.”

“I'm not crying,” Gabryle says, crying.

“I know. It's just dusty in here.”

Another nod. There's a pause—long and hushful—before Christopher speaks again.

“You know, people say a lot of things when they're scared, or when they want to feel big. Doesn't mean they're right. Those kids don't know anything about us, Gabryle. Not really. They just repeat the worst they've heard.”

“Why do they say stuff like that if it's not true?”

“Sometimes the truth is more complicated than you can pass around. People don't like complicated. They like easy. And they especially like easy when it lets them pretend they're better than someone else. Being able to push past that makes you strong, though. Stronger than any superhero.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” Christopher waits a moment, gathering his thoughts. “Have you been picking fights with them?”

Gabryle’s sniffle is quieter this time. His silence is answer enough.

“Starting a fight is almost never the answer, Gabe. Trust me. I’ve been in plenty of them.”

“I don’t start them!” Gabryle squawks. “They do!”

“Engaging in them."

“What am I gonna do, then? They don’t listen to me, Daddy. And I hate hearing the things they say.”

“You’re gonna tell me, Gabryle. Me or Mom. We’ll take care of it, I promise.”

Gabryle sticks out his lip, unsatisfied, but he doesn’t argue. He snuggles further into Christopher with an, “Okay,” and then a, “So that's not really what happened to Jonah?”

“Well…” Christopher thinks. “It is, supposedly. It's what we've come to believe. It's probably the truth. But we don't really know for sure. We might never. That's part of what makes me scared when you go in there.”

“But he's gone now?”

“Yeah.”

“And he won't come back?”

“Yeah,” Christopher murmurs. His grip tightens on Gabryle's arm, so delicate in his grasp. “He won't come back.”

Chapter Text

“I knew it,” Mariana bemoans from the edge of their bed, devastated to learn that her suspicions were correct. “I knew something was going on that he wasn't telling us. Grace was right.”

“Grace was not right,” Christopher reassures, fastening a navy tie around his neck. He usually wears this one for church because it's Mariana's favorite; she says it makes his eyes pop. “Grace treats him like he's broken. Troubled. He's none of those things. He's just responding to those kids the only way he knows how.”

“Do you think that says something about us?” Mariana wonders despairingly. “Did he not think we were safe to talk to?”

“No…” Christopher says. carries the wide end of the tie over the knot and slides it up to his throat. “I don't think so, at least. I think he's putting on a brave face. He doesn't want to let it show that it's bothering him.”

“I wish that wasn't something he has to think about at all, Christopher…”

“I know…” he sighs, and pulls her up from the bed. “Maybe we could talk to the Townsends after the service. Iron things out.”

“We could…” she agrees. Christopher knows her well enough to recognize the refrains of her uncertainty, and they echo through him just as strongly. Talking isn't a guarantee of anything. Behavior is sometimes learned.

“We'll work it out,” he promises. The comfort of her returning smile carries him through the rest of the morning: rousing a yawning Gabryle from sleep and giving him a bath and getting him in his Sunday clothes and trying to tame his hair. They pile into the Toyota with only a minute to spare, Gabryle greedily munching from a bag of Doritos he snuck out of the house. Mariana wipes the orange residue from his fingers and mouth at the base of the church steps with a harried reprimand (this is not something we eat for breakfast, Gabryle), and Christopher ushers them inside as the congregation is in the middle of singing “How Great Thou Art.” They squeeze into the pew at the very back, the Pruitt family shuffling over to make room. Gabryle sits next to Dallas, and each of their parents takes turns reminding them to stop goofing off during the sermon. Christopher does his best to follow along with Reverend Cates himself—feeling like a hypocrite—but his mind wanders uneven paths. He rehearses what he'll say to Harry and Donna Townsend, the parents of Anthony from Gabryle’s class and Isaac from two grades above. If Mariana wants to start the conversation, he'll let her lead. He hopes she does, in fact—she’s always been more socially adroit than him when it comes to family friends and he doesn't want to accidentally soil their relationship with the Townsends.

Reverend Cates ends the service with the invitation and the altar call and “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.” Men, women, and children break for the lawn upon the organ’s final note to chat amongst themselves, while Christopher and Mariana search for tufts of brown Townsend hair. They catch them as they're heading down the front steps, and Donna looks back at them with pleasant surprise when Mariana calls out to her. The two families settle in the grass by the right-side railing, Anthony and Isaac sainted in the midday sun. Gabryle—hand trapped in his mother's—squirms restlessly as she makes small talk, trying to avoid Isaac's eye. Every time he catches a glimpse of it, however, Isaac smirks and Gabryle glares back. At last, Christopher feels a tug on his sleeve and tilts a bit to his left, where Gabryle is sandwiched between his parents.

“Can we talk?” he whispers.

Mariana glances at them with a look that reads go as she laughs at some joke Donna made about fathers and sons always escaping to do their own thing. Christopher allows himself to be led to the other side of the steps, into shadow.

“Something wrong?” he prompts.

“I don’t wanna look at Isaac.”

“I get that—I do—but you should have a part in the conversation, Gabe. You can just look at me while we’re— ”

“I don't want a part,” Gabryle interrupts glumly. “It’s just gonna make it worse. Isaac’s gonna think I’m a baby now ‘cause I told you.”

“It doesn’t matter what Isaac thinks.”

“Yeah,” Gabryle agrees. “But he’s not just gonna think it—he’s gonna call me one, too, and everyone else is gonna start doing it and I don’t wanna be made fun of.”

Christopher lifts his brows, at a loss for how to contest this logic. It’s the same thing he would’ve thought at Gabryle’s age.

“Well…” he starts uncertainly. “How about— ”

He’s cut off by a piercing scream from the direction of the parking lot. Gabryle jumps and Christopher grabs him on instinct, ensnaring his hand in Christopher’s own as they swarm with the rest of the churchgoers to the asphalt prison of cars across the street.

The source of the scream was not from injury—car-related or otherwise—but from the red-lipped mouth of Grace St. James, standing before the beautiful Jaguar XJ of her husband with her lower jaw disconnected from the rest of her head. There, pinned to the hood of his luxury sedan, is a dead crow, MURDERERS painted wetly in red across the windshield.

Murmurs roll up from the crowd and over the muggy air. Edith Thatcher bursts into tears, hiding her face in Wayne Thatcher’s chest, their Porsche parked pristinely next to the victim. Kolton St. James hurries to block the rest of his family’s view of the vandalism, picking up a wailing Bryce and spinning Mercy around like a top, her high ponytail bobbing with the motion. He has no such luck with his wife. Grace turns on the crowd with a look of pure, unadulterated rage.

“Who did this?!” she barks.

No one steps forward. Gabryle is staring at the dead crow with strange fascination. Christopher tries covering it by stepping in front of him, but the movement only garners Grace’s attention.

“You,” she accuses, pointing a gloved finger at Christopher. “It was you!”

Christopher blanches at her, though he should've expected that he would be the first suspect as soon as he saw the red paint.

“I had no hand in this,” he denies, speaking slowly and calmly.

“Don't lie to me, Henris! I can see right through you!”

“Grace, enough,” Kolton steps forward, taking Grace's wrist in his hand and lowering her arm. He laughs inelegantly. “Enough now.”

Grace rips her arm from Kolton’s grasp and throws him a look so venomous that he should’ve melted.

“Don’t you dare tell me to stop,” she snaps, gesticulating at the Jaguar. “Look at your car! Look what they’ve done!”

“Let’s not leap to conclusions,” Kolton says reassuringly. “The Henrises were in the church the entire service. They weren’t the ones who did this.”

“How do you know?”

“I saw them, Grace— ”

Mariana rushes to Christopher’s side, pulling Gabryle back from the growing spectacle. Her fingers curl tightly around his shoulder, eyes widening as she takes in the ruined car.

“Oh, my…” she murmurs.

“Honey, please,” Kolton says, Bryce still wailing. Mercy has turned back to the car, staring at it with childishly round, doll-like eyes. “You’re making a scene— ”

“She should be making a scene,” Wayne interjects, glaring glacially at the crowd. “If this happened to any of them , they’d be marching up and down Main Street screaming bloody murder. But because it’s us—because they all think we deserve it—none of them will say a word.”

Reverend Cates pushes through the crowd, finally emerging in the bubble of space separating the Thatchers and the St. Jameses from the rest of the community. He huffs, slightly out of breath. “What in high heaven is going on out here?!”

“Nothing, Pastor,” Kolton says quickly, stiff-lipped and red-faced. “Just a bit of vandalism.”

He deposits Bryce into the arms of his teary-eyed grandmother and opens the driver’s door, leaning in and fumbling in the glove compartment for a rag or tissues—anything to wipe the word off the windshield. His movements are jerky, almost panicked. Reverend Cates gazes at the car in disbelief.

“Call the sheriff, Pastor,” Grace commands. “Christopher Henris should be detained and questioned.”

Christopher looks at her, dumbfounded. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“That’s enough,” Reverend Cates snaps, surprising everyone with the steel in his voice. “There will be no vigilante justice—not today. This is a churchyard, and you all know better than to turn it into a courtroom.”

Grace spits at him bitterly. “You’re really going to let them walk away freely while my family is threatened and spat at?”

“Keep your head on your shoulders, Mrs. St. James. God will— ”

“To hell with God!”

“We’re leaving,” Christopher says gruffly, low enough for his wife and son alone. He wraps an arm around Mariana’s shoulders and in a sordid chain they escape, black and brown and red heads rippling through a sea of scrutiny.

Chapter Text

There isn't much commotion after the incident at church, but prior notions about the Townsends and their sons are forgotten in lieu of the following hours. Wes calls not long after they get home, incensed and begging for details. Christopher explains what happened, listening to banging pots and water rising in metal on the other end—he’s probably in the process of making boxed mac and cheese.

“Aw, what?” he cries at the end of the recount. “That's it?”

“I'm glad that's it, personally,” Christopher says drily.

“She's got a screw loose, dude. All of them do.”

It isn't too much later that they get a call from Raymond, who says they left before he could talk to them.

“I'm so sorry for what happened back there,” he says, remorseful for an act he neither committed nor took part in. “I know you'd never do something like that, Christopher.”

“I appreciate you calling, Raymond,” Christopher replies, and does not say he's imagined doing infinitely worse to the Thatchers.

Sheriff Lynn arrives in Laura’s old caprice as soon as Christopher’s hung up. She stays for only a short time, promising she doesn’t believe he had any part in the vandalization of Mr. St. James’s Jaguar XJ, despite the complaints Grace made when she called. Multiple people have already attested that he was there for the entire service. She does, however, ask if he has any ideas about who the culprit is. Christopher does not.

“That’s alright,” Sheriff Lynn assures, hands on her hips as she walks back out onto the porch. “I already have some guesses myself.”

“What, if you don’t mind sharing?” Mariana probes, tucked close to him in the entrance way. He can see how tightly she’s trying to keep her curiosity boxed.

Sheriff Lynn debates with herself. When she speaks, she softens an octave, as if divulging a grand secret. “There’s been some unrest lately,” she reveals. “You know, with the lodge reopening and all that.”

Mariana nods fastidiously.

“I hear gossip about it all the time. Some folks feel bad for them, some think it’s been closed long enough and they’ve made their penance—others just want it to stay shut down for good. Those ones are the loudest. I reckon whoever did that to the Jameses was one of them. They just want to make a statement.”

The Meridian Lodge had been closed since the discovery of Danny’s corpse in 1998. It wasn’t much of a loss in Christopher’s opinion. The lodge had less than a handful of members from town—all of whom were at the same peak of ostentatiousness as the Thatchers—and everyone else who stayed there or hunted on its land were out-of-state clients, wealthy guests like corporate execs and old university friends of Wayne and other legacy families who came during deer season, or for upland bird hunting and rustic getaways.

Christopher considers the lodge a blight on Coldwater, preventing it from moving on or finding peace in the wake of all the devastation wrecked near its grounds. The Thatchers have spent the last seven years holed away in their mansion on the northwestern edge of town, licking their wounds, unraveling their stitching only to host a grandiose wedding for Kolton and the St. James's induction into their hallowed ranks of their family. For the first time in decades, they were not flashing their existence into a void of trailer-house streets, or in the faces of middling middle-class homes, and the town was temporarily a land of imperfect harmony. He thinks it would stay that way if they shut down the lodge—if they locked themselves up in that mansion forever and waited for the trees to pick the meat off their bones, or for a time far along in the future where no one had ever heard of a Wayne or an Edith—a Clement or a Will or a Grace—to emerge.

“If you ask me…” Sheriff Lynn says, barely above a whisper now. “And don’t tell this to anyone else… But if you ask me, I think there’s some sense in keeping it closed.”

She leaves this shrouded over Christopher and Mariana as she heads back to her Caprice. As soon as Mariana locks the door and they’re safely inside the house, they voice their agreement.

Chapter Text

Christopher and Raymond spend the rest of the week finishing up Ludwik Bukoski’s deck. Raymond mounts the top and bottom rails between posts using galvanized screws and pocket joints on Monday; Christopher focuses on carving two more posts on Tuesday. On Wednesday they smooth down the deck’s entire surface and apply the first coat of wood sealant. They add hand rails to the stairs and another coat of sealant and a decorative fascia skirt to hide the support structure on Thursday, and on Friday they perform a final inspection, clearing their materials from Bukoski’s yard and collecting their pay. Between each of the five days, the three men gossip about the woes that have befallen the St. Jameses and Thatchers.

The vandals seemed to have opened a floodgate of suppressed animus; it’s as if the dead crow and the red paint were little more than a vessel of permission for the residents of Coldwater to do its worst. Since Sunday, MONEY CAN’T BUY A CLEAN NAME was found spraypainted on the sidewalk outside their estate, a bouquet of wilted lilies at the foot of the gate, and a bag of rotting meat with a note that read SMELLS LIKE GUILT !!! Some of the perpetrators were caught fleeing the scene late on the fourth night; Sheriff Lynn had staked them out in her Caprice, hoping someone might be foolish enough to try again. It was a 15-year-old girl with lots of piercings and orange-dyed hair named Natalie Hopkins. She made her hatred of the Thatchers clear during her interrogation, and that what happened to Jonah Henris and Danny Ruiz was a tragedy, and if they were alive today they'd be “way more fucking sick than the Thatchers.” Sheriff Lynn nods emphatically before locking her in jail for an overnight stay and phoning her parents. Through Natalie, she discovered the identities of several other vandal—all of them students at Coldwater Public School. They were the ones who'd left the spraypainted message and lilies, but they didn't know who vandalized the car or dropped off the rotting meat.

Mariana is troubled when Christopher comes back from the workshop on Friday night, staring hard at the tabletop in the dining room. Her pajamas are a plain shirt she stole from Christopher and a pair of thigh-length shorts, her hair in tendrils over her hunched shoulders. She might've been a siren, and if he were a sailor he would be bones at the bottom of the ocean, ripped apart by her song. She wouldn’t even have had to open her mouth.

“You look like you're thinking,” Christopher says casually, washing his hands at the kitchen sink.

“I am.”

“Wanna talk about it?”

He stands over the back of her chair, brushing her hair gently out of the way so his hands can alight on her shoulders. She relaxes into his touch, his fingers slotting onto past idents he's left on her collarbone.

“All these horrible things people are doing to the Thatchers and the Jameses…” she sighs. “It feels wrong. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth.”

“Yeah…” he agrees painfully. “It is wrong.”

She tilts her head back, looking up at him. “You don't sound very convinced.”

“It’s wrong, objectively speaking.”

“And subjectively?”

“I mean… It's still wrong. But I don't think it's that bad.”

Mariana twists in her chair, facing him. His hands fall away from her, onto the back of the chair.

“I know you hate the Thatchers, Christopher…” she starts.

“I do,” he affirms.

“But the ones in that house—they aren't the ones who hurt Jonah. That was Will and he's gone now. It isn't fair to condemn all of them for the actions of one.”

“They might not have killed him, Mari, but they have hurt him. They've hurt our family more times than I can count—hurt us in ways I can't forgive. The way Grace treats you is the ultimate test from God, I swear…”

Her right hand covers his left. “I appreciate that, Christopher—I really do. But it still isn't right for them to have to go through this.”

Christopher works his jaw, glancing at the hardwood: oak, a yellow-tinted tan. Older than himself and his father and his father’s father.

“They have children,” she insists. “Young children. One of them is Gabryle's age, the other is even younger. Can you imagine him having to see those horrible messages? The dead animals?”

“Their parents brought it on themselves. They can cover their children’s eyes.”

She gives him a disbelieving scoff. “Really?”

He shrugs, but the gesture is flimsy and defensive. “I’m just saying. It’s not like people don’t have reason to be angry.”

“I didn’t say they didn’t,” Mariana replies quietly. “But this is just cruelty dressed up like righteousness.”

Christopher drags out the chair beside her and takes a seat, folding his arms on the table. He allows a moment to pass with things unsaid.

“I know what you mean, Mari,” he says. “But it's hard for me to feel sorry for them. They walk around like they’re untouchable—like the rules are different for them. I want them to know what it feels like to not be on top of the world for once.”

“To feel scared?” she says, a little sharper than she intends. “Ashamed? To worry about what might be found on their doorstep tomorrow morning?”

Mariana searches his face, but his expression doesn’t give way to remorse or understanding. It’s locked, tight and stubborn.

“I won’t ask you to forgive them, Christopher—I could never. I just… I don’t want you to gloat. Don’t be a part of this... Whatever it is.”

Christopher is quiet. Somewhere in the house, a pipe groans behind the walls—a skeleton shuddering mournfully. The silence stretches.

“I haven’t thrown dead things at their gate,” he mumbles finally.

“That’s not the bar, Chris.”

He almost laughs, but the corners of his mouth don’t pull wide enough for one to come out. Christopher leans back in his chair and runs a hand through his hair.

“God, this town is exhausting.”

Mariana bites her lip, reaching for the hand he's left on the table. “I know,” she says, and goes quiet. Her fingers tangle with his, slotting into place between his own as easily as he had grasped her shoulder. Her palm is soft against his own, soothingly so. “Imagine if we left…”

He studies her—how her bare lashes curl romantically over her lid, every dip and plane chiseled carefully by her sculpture. “Left?”

She shrugs airily. “Went to another town, or city… Another state. Another country.”

“You want to live with your parents in Spain?”

“Not exactly…”

She bites her lower-lip and smiles at him. “There are so many places out there to see. So many lives we could live. Memories Gabryle could have. We wouldn't have to worry about Anthonies or Isaacs or Thatchers or Jameses."

Mariana glides up from her chair, pulling him with her. She adjusts the collar of his shirt, drags her hands over his neck to the rough stubble of his jaw, brushes the sweep of his hair back from his eyes like a curtain only she can draw. She touches him the way he touches her in the dark, when there isn't light to illuminate her but he wants her in his sight, beneath his scientist’s gaze that hasn't looked through a microscope since high school and yet could document her just as thoroughly.

“Like where?” he asks lightly.

“Like… Hmmm…” She tilts her head. “Anywhere where we're no one. Where no one's ever heard of a Henris in their life and we could be anyone we want. Let's just say… Washington for now.”

“I feel like someone’s gotta have heard of us there—some sort of crime enthusiast holed up in their basement’s gotta have us in their records.”

He grins when she does. “You know what I mean. We’d have a nice little house by the beach that we could see from our bedroom window, and we would sit out there every morning and Gabryle would swim every day…”

“Gabryle doesn't know how to swim.”

“He’d learn. I'd teach him. And you'd renovate the place till it's just how I like it, and I’d cook for you while you work and raise the kids— ”

“Kids? Plural?”

She nods. “Gabryle needs siblings, you know… Friends. Because we'll be so far away from everyone else. And I wouldn't mind if it's a girl or another boy.”

“I wouldn't, either.” His voice becomes a husk of itself as he circles her waist. “But a little girl who looked like her mother would be nice.”

She flushes. “I think a little boy who looked like his father would be nice. And you would sell your carvings and everyone would appreciate the heart you put into them, and I’d finally open that café…”

“And a flower shop,” he continues. “And a book shop with a little side-building for dancing and a boutique in the back.”

She gazes at him hungrily, the quiet reverence in her greed turning it from sin to virtue. “And everything would be so simple we'd remember every moment.”

She lays her head on his chest, holding him like they're dancing to the quiet. At some point he kisses her because it feels right and because he wants to, and he takes his ZR800 from its perch on the counter and captures her smile over-top a Tuesday-picture of Gabryle with a peanut butter beard, and when she says she looks ugly right now he tells her she looks beautiful, more absolutely than any mathematical formula could calculate. He leads her up to their room in the dark and they lay on the bed—she still a siren and he still bones—and the brown sugar of her hair afflicts his dreams, building in his subconscious a cedar house and a crystal-blue ruckus of waves to caress the sand, to wash over his son's feet and the concepts of other children he would love from the moment he saw them, faceless as they chase the concept of an older brother. The sun in that dream-sky is so bright he wonders if it could be real. Then trees crop up beyond the shoreline, and a headstone is built out of rocks in the surf, and the roots of his father's land breach the silty ground to bloody his ankles, though they are not of the same biome. He wakes with his answer, and for the first time since he knelt before his brother's grave in 1998, he burns with a longing—a mourning—that makes him want to cry.

Chapter Text

Grace stands outside the door to her brother’s room, her hand poised on the knob and the stench of rotting meat stuck to her nostrils. Not Clement’s room, of course. The other room. The other brother.

No one has been in Will’s bedroom since 1992, after he was sent to the Missouri State Penitentiary. Grace was a child, then, and her memory of those months are hazy, worn-thin from how often she’s turned it over in her hands. She remembers most clearly how her mother used to sit here on his bed, weeping about injustice, and how her screaming used to funnel throughout the entire house, echoing in Grace’s dreams and turning them into nightmares. Her father had eventually put a stop to his wife’s nightly visits, sending Edith off to a “great psychologist” he knew in upstate New York who would “make her better in no time” and excavating his second son’s room with clinical precision. He had all of Will’s possessions loaded up in cardboard boxes and pickup trucks to be either thrown in the dump or tossed in a firepit near the lodge. The likelihood of that firepit being the one Will used to burn Jonah’s body is very low, she knows, but Grace can’t help but wonder.

She also knows that if she opens the door, there will be nothing inside. Nothing tangible for her to blame for ruining her life. She used to believe the stories her mother wove about his innocence; they were easy to lose herself in. Comfortable. The monster she saw in the courtroom was not the Will she knew. Her Will would kick her out of his room, only to let her in five minutes later; her Will remembered all the names of her Barbies when she asked him to play with her; her Will scrunched his nose when she smeared lipstick on his mouth during a makeover, then flipped his wig over his shoulder as if it were his real hair and ask how he looked. Her Will loved Jonah like he loved no one else, and her Will was the person she loved like no one else, even her parents and most certainly Clement, who was loud and mean and hit her in the head with a football once (by accident, he’d claimed as she cried into Will’s shirt—but she'd seen the way he laughed as it struck her).

That love was what made it so easy for her to hate him now. He had killed much more than Jonah and Luanne and Her Will in 1991. He had killed any semblance of peace in the house and any future in which his family could be happy—in which his niece and nephews could be raised with a shred of normalcy. Their mother would probably have to take pills for the rest of her life and her father would die making conspiracy theories, oscillating between mourning his beloved son and pretending he never existed.

It was selfish. So fucking selfish.

Grace sneers at the door, interrupted from her musings by the tiny twang of her name. Moniker, really. She closes her eyes and breathes out deeply.

“You should be in bed, Mercy.”

“I keep having bad dreams,” Mercy says, standing shyly at Grace's feet.

“Then you should tell that to your father.”

“He's sleeping. And I wanted you.”

Grace looks down at her. She has Grace's exact features from childhood: a porcelain face framed by gold-spun tresses, and a light spangling of freckles on her nose that come out with exposure to the sun. Her only faults are that she has ears a little too big for her face—though that sort of thing is cute on kids—and the near-black brown irises of Kolton rather than the typical Thatcher-blue. It sours something in Grace each time she glimpses her daughter’s unblemished innocence. Mercy is going to grow up and become a very pretty girl, and she's probably going to have a mind of her own—like Grace did when she decided she was going to run away at seventeen—and she’s probably going to have all the wrong ideas about freedom and independence that will inevitably have to be crushed, like Grace's were when her parents dragged her back by hair.

“So you would've woken me up instead of Dad if we'd both been asleep?”

Mercy glances away, wringing her hands in a Disney princess nightgown. “No…”

Grace sighs. “Go to your father.”

Mercy leaves without a word in protest. Grace decides that she'll save her visit with Will's shadows for another night. She does not return to the cold bedside by her husband and heads instead to the sunroom, where she keeps in a box with a heart-shaped lock from her girlhood the letters from Nathan Stone that have arrived over the years, addressed to her but clearly meant for Will—or so it seems on the surface. She reads them until the early hours of morning, a wretched chronicle of Stone’s life from 1992 to 1998. In them, he writes about his travels across the country, interesting people he’s met, experiences he’s had that seem so outlandish to her they must be conjured from Stone’s imagination. He talks about God and his hate for him—his love, too, and how he is pulled cruelly back and forth between the two. The weather at Big Sur was beautiful while I was there. I caught a Walleye at Lake Superior. I busked in downtown NYC and the crowd liked it, I think, but they would've loved it if you were there playing your air tambourine because it would’ve made me look better. I’ve settled down, kind of. I don’t go out much anymore. I’ll be here whenever you decide to leave. He talks about how he misses Will and his family every day—every hour—so much it hurts. These lines are the hardest to read, though she knows none of it is real. It’s a complete fantasy. A cruel farce. The prank that came before the dead crow and the red paint. The one that started it all.

Nathan Stone is not real. Nathan Stone died on October 16, 1991. Nathan Stone was the code name Jonah used when he and Will were in sixth grade, playing spy and pretending the Thatcher estate was the White House.

Nathan Stone and Bruce Fox. Jonah Henris and Will Thatcher. The game was top-secret for no reason besides boyish folly; the two of them never shared its details with anyone until a singular instance in which Grace and Christopher had been allowed to play it. They were the only ones in the whole world who knew the existence of Stone and Fox, and because Nathan Stone is dead—shot twice in the head by his own partner and dumped in the lake—the only person who could have sent those letters was Christopher Henris, who Grace is now certain will take every opportunity to torment her family as it is presented to him.

Chapter Text

“Still don’t want us to talk to Anthony and Isaac’s parents?” Christopher asks, squinting at their Jenga tower on the coffee table as Teen Titans plays quietly on the TV. Gabryle keeps pausing to watch it over his shoulder. His attention is glued to the screen as Christopher selects his block—the middle piece in the third row at the top—and shimmies it painstakingly free, repositioning it at the top of the pile. He blows out a breath of relief once it’s safely in place.

“Hey.” Christopher reaches over the table and nudges Gabryle on the shoulder. “You listening?”

Gabryle jumps. “Huh?” He blinks. Brightens. “Oh, yeah… Yeah, you shouldn’t talk to them.”

He sticks his tongue as he selects his own brick. Unfortunately, the tower remains intact during his reconfiguration of it. Another chance at victory lost.

Christopher returns to squinting. “How are we gonna stop them from bothering you, then?”

“You could homeschool me.”

“Next school year?”

“Yeah.”

“The last time we asked you if you wanted to be homeschooled you said no and almost cried.”

“I didn’t almost cry!”

“Did to.”

“I was upset ‘cause I was thinking of my friends.”

“You can see your friends outside of school, you know.”

“Yeah… But school’s where all the crazy stuff happens… I won’t know anything that’s going on and they'll have to catch me up.” He sulks. “It won’t be the same.”

Christopher peers at Gabryle around the tower. “You know what Si told me once but that I was too braindead to listen to?”

“What?”

“That sometimes it's not a bad thing if things change.”

“Why do you always talk about Si like he’s dead?” Gabryle tilts his head at the ceiling, thinking. Yellow light peels through the open window of the living room, painting his hair a blood-red orange. “Well, he is older than you so I guess he’s close enough to it.”

“Mom told you to stop talking like that. And I think it’d be better if you don’t know what goes on at that school.”

“Why?”

“Because I went there. Things get toxic after sixth grade.”

“Toxic… Does that mean crazy?”

“Yeah.

“So… Like I was saying.”

“But it’s the bad kind of crazy. The kind you shouldn’t get mixed up in.”

The doorbell rings, cutting Christopher off just as he's about to pull his next block free. Gabryle leaps to his feet and climbs onto the couch, smashing his cheek against the window.

“Who is it?” Christopher asks, leaning back on his hands.

“It's a dude! I dunno who, though. He kinda looks like a girl.” He unsticks himself from the glass. “Can I answer it?”

“I'll get it,” Christopher says, pushing up from the floor. “You keep watching your show.”

Gabryle juts his lower-lip.

“Stranger danger, remember?”

“Fine…” he grumbles.

A second ring shakes the house before he reaches the door. Mariana pokes her head from the kitchen, hair swaying with the scent of roasted chicken and a savory saute of vegetables.

“Were you expecting someone?”

Christopher shakes his head. She ducks out of sight as he turns the lock and draws the door open.

On the porch is, indeed, a dude—a lanky man with waist-length blonde hair streaked gray and a tie-dye Grateful Dead shirt. He chews open-mouthed on a pink wad of gum, smiling and staring half-lidded in a way that scratches annoyingly at Christopher’s brain. He appears to be somewhere in his late 40s or early 50s. Christopher spots a green flower-printed Volkswagen parked in the middle of the gravel road leading into the driveway, like it was ripped straight out of a Scooby-Doo episode.

“Hola!” the man greets.

“…Hello.” Christopher blinks. “Can I help you?”

“Christopher Henris!” He examines Christopher head to toe, grin widening. “Holy shit, have you grown! Last time I saw you, you were just like a hedgehog, all spikey hair and studs and everything! Now look at you! You look like you eat raw meat for breakfast!”

“…Excuse me?”

“What?!” he exclaims in mock offense. “You don't remember me?!”

Christopher scours his memory for someone with this man’s face and comes up short.

“Sorry… I don't remember us meeting before.” He doesn't try to hide his confusion.

“I'm jokin’ with you, man. I knew you probably wouldn't remember little ol’ me.” He affects an air of seriousness. “Okay… Think back a couple years. Eight, if we're gonna be exact. September, 1998 .”

“Do you need something?”

The man ignores him. “Google just got invented. Swissair Flight 111 just crashed off Nova Scotia in Canada. You just played a sick-ass set at a sick-ass house party and met the coolest dude ever in the bathroom.” He waggles his eyebrows. “Anyone comin’ to mind?”

September, 1998. Christopher reaches for it, peeling it open. He doesn't immediately recall any sick-ass sets or house parties. That was the month Simon went with Jared to a concert on the Iron Maiden Virtual XI World Tour , so they hadn't had any gigs that first week, and everything conflicted with their schedules in the second half of the month. They'd performed only once and it was the last time all four of them played together in front of an audience. Their final venue was terrible: the basement of Kolton St. James’s mansion in a town an hour away.

Recognition, however blurry, sparks in Christopher. 

“You're that guy I ran into in the bathroom…”

“Ding, ding, ding! Correct-a-mundo, my dude. Lookin’ at Dylan Prescott himself in the flesh.”

Christopher’s confusion doesn't abate. He'd forgotten Dylan Prescott existed the second he left that bathroom. “What… How on earth do you remember me? Why are you at my house?”

Dylan Prescott chuckles. “I got a memory like a steel trap—that's the first thing you're gonna learn about me. And you're quite the unforgettable dude, lemme just say… I'm pretty sure everyone in all ‘a Missouri knows who you are.”

“I wouldn’t go that far…”

“Talented, smart, and humble.” He chuckles. “Killer combo. Anyway, I was just passing through the area and thought I'd catch up with an old friend.”

Christopher waits for him to elaborate. Dylan Prescott continues to smile.

“…You mean me?”

“Ding, ding, ding! Can I come in?”

Christopher’s mouth falls slightly open as he fully absorbs the aura of the man standing on the porch: his puka necklace and scraggly beard; the brown bandana cinching his forehead and the circle sunglasses with a pink-yellow ombre tint hanging from the collar of the Grateful Dead shirt. None of that is a cause of concern—not the way the skunky scent of weed emanating from him is.

“I…” he starts, at a loss. “I don’t think that’s— ”

“Woah, there,” Dylan Prescott interrupts, cocking his head so he can see past Christopher’s bulk. “Red hair? And a hand-me-down robe? You must be a Weasley.”

Christopher looks over his shoulder. Gabryle is standing in the entryway, clearly eavesdropping. Cover blown, he springs forward and squeezes between his dad and the wall.

"You're a Harry Potter fan?” he asks, interest piqued.

“I’m a fan of anything my niece likes. She's read all the books, like, three times. You?”

“I haven't read the books ‘cause reading’s boring but I’ve seen the movies.”

“Same. Too many big words for me. Nice shirt, by the way.” He looks pointedly at Gabryle's green, oversized Legend of Zelda shirt.

“Thanks! My dad stole it.”

“I didn't steal it, Gabryle,” Christopher corrects. “It was free at a garage sale.”

“Hey, I mean, that's valid, too,” Dylan Prescott says. “I don’t know what a Zelda is but it sounds cool as hell. You don't see a lotta words with Z in ‘em anymore.”

“It is cool as heck.”

“Teach me about it?”

Gabryle beams. Christopher steps in front of him.

“Listen, I really don't think— ”

Chapter Text

Dylan Prescott stays for dinner. Christopher gives up his spot at the table for him, gritting his teeth as he drags a folding chair out of the shed and into the house, feeling his blood pressure soar as Dylan Prescott lays compliment after compliment on Mariana—her appearance, her countenance, her cooking. The first couple were fine—expected, even, because his wife is perfect in all regards and deserves notice—but a fourth? A fifth? A sixth? It's a fine line and he’s unconvinced Dylan Prescott isn't going out of his way to cross it. They won't stop replaying in his head and the weed smell is strengthening with each passing minute, leaving Christopher unsure who the high one is—Dylan Prescott or himself, and if this dinner is a blunt-induced psychosis should it be the latter. He gnaws his roasted chicken and basmati rice with unnecessary force.

“And that’s what the Triforce stands for,” Gabryle finishes, half the food on his plate uneaten—a rare occurrence. Mariana whispers at him to keep eating. He distractedly lifts his fork and pokes at his rice pile.

“Okay, let me get this straight,” Dylan Prescott says, chewing open-mouthed. The smack and yawn of his facial orifice make Christopher want to reach across the table and rip out his tongue. “The big booger guy is strength, Zelda is wisdom, and the Link fellow is… courage?”

“Yup.”

“Frickin’ elite.” He slurps loudly from his can of Coke. “You know, that’s kinda deep. Like, actually. You don’t see that kinda symbolism nowadays. Everything’s corporate.”

“Yeah,” Gabryle breathes. Christopher does not like the way his son is looking at Dylan Prescott. “Frickin’.”

“Alright!” Mariana says, rising from her chair and clapping her hands together. “It’s about time you had a bath, Gabryle!”

“Yeah, you’re stinking up the table,” Christopher agrees.

Gabryle takes on a look of devastation. “But I’m not done eating!”

“You weren’t eating, anyway.”

“But I’m not done explaining the lore!”

“It’s a’right, Little Dorito,” Dylan Prescott reassures. “Listen to your mama. I regret not listening to mine, you know. But not really, ‘cause if I had I wouldn’t have turned out the way I am.”

“I’m glad you didn’t,” Gabryle says, hopping off his chair as Mariana narrows her eyes at him. “You’re funny. You’re really weird but you’re funny. Can I stay just a little longer— ”

“Upstairs,” Mariana orders.

He pouts as he carries his dishes to the sink and runs up the stairs. Mariana follows, exiting the kitchen with a promise to return as soon as she’s put Gabryle to bed. She thanks Dylan Prescott for the pleasure of his unexpected company and kind words in case she isn’t back by the time he leaves. He watches her go—eyes snagged on her hips—and Christopher nearly snaps his spoon in half. He wants to shove either end—pointed and round—in Dylan Prescott's eyes. Dylan Prescott then explains to Christopher the entire epic of his life, from his birth on the sandy beaches of San Diego, California, to his travels state-to-state in Sharon, his Volkswagen (as well as his first ex). Most of it consists of getting drunk at bonfires or getting high in the park or getting drunk and high at concerts. He has a small, core group of people he considers his family despite not being blood-related—a few of them were staying at the Coldwater Motel before heading up to Minnesota. The motel is where he'll return when he's finished his business here, a time that can't come soon enough.

“They all really wanted to meet you, man,” he expresses. “I've put in lots of good words. A couple of them might want your autograph, let's just say…”

Dylan Prescott waits, smiling. He does that a lot.

Christopher has nothing to reply to this information with. He just wants this conversation to end.

“I think a thank you is in order, Henris,” he says jocularly. 

Christopher smiles thinly. “I'm not a celebrity.”

“Oh, but you should be! You deserve to be famous, you and that band of yours. Your songs were super catchy. I tried finding you guys after that party but there was nothing, dude. Zip. Nada. I found out what town you guys were from but I couldn’t find any gigs. Had to leave for Montana before I could hear Redshift again. Cryin’ shame, man. That’s actually part of the reason why I wanted to pass through here. Was hopin’ I could finally get to see you playing.”

“We don't make music together anymore.” Redshift had never formally disbanded, but they hadn't played as a group since they'd recorded that demo.

“Aw, man…” Dylan Prescott shrugs. “That's what I figured when I heard your bassist passed on. Seems to me you've got a pretty nice life now, though. Started building it when you were young, probably. I mean— ” He smacks his lips. “You're still young, but— bah, you know what I mean. You must’ve gotten to work on Little Dorito, like, the night after that party.”

“My son's name is Gabryle,” he says, distaste dripping from each syllable.

“Potato potatoe. He’s a real cute nugget. Kinda reminds me of someone, actually.”

Christopher decides not to answer. Dylan Prescott is unmoved by this, scraping the last crumbs from his plate and leaning back in his chair with a satisfied groan. He rubs his stomach like a cartoon character.

“Damn, you’re lucky, Henris,” Dylan Prescott informs him. "If you ever let this woman of yours go, I’m taking your place before she can blink . Joking, of course. Or am I? Just playin’ you. Unless…” A chuckle.

Christopher wonders if anyone in the band of groupies at Coldwater Motel would miss Dylan Prescott should he go missing. “I thought you were into men,” he says tersely.

“What?!” he cries. “Nah, remember? That was just a little experiment—a failed one.”

“Right.”

“Honest to God, it was!”

Shame distorts the easygoing lilt of Dylan Prescott’s face, unpleasant and unprecedented. Christopher is thrown off-guard. It doesn't look right on him.

“You know… I actually had two reasons I came this way. First is hopin’ to see you play, obviously. The second is… kinda crazy. Like, insane.” He shifts in his chair, the most serious he’s been all evening. “That guy I was with way back then… The one I told you about in that bathroom… I cut off all contact with him. You know, ‘cause he was weird. A freak.”

Christopher nods uncertainly. The most he remembers about that is Dylan Prescott asking if Christopher was like his ex, to which he had replied no, not wanting to hear anything he might regret. His inebriated state at the time of their acquaintance and the many years that've passed have sanded down the details.

“Didn’t even listen to his band’s music anymore. I was gonna force myself to forget his existence—which was hard ‘cause I’ve got a memory like a steel trap, like I said. It worked for a while, though. Never heard from him again in… decades, actually. But I learned somethin’ about him a couple years ago.” Dylan Prescott picks at his thumbnail, mouth a thin line. “Heard he was from here. Coldwater. Heard he killed someone. Maybe a couple.”

Christopher stares at him. “What do you mean?” he asks, clutching his fork as if he really will snap it in half. Laughter and giggles cascade over him from upstairs, but they’re distant. Muffled by the cotton sprouting in his head.

Dylan Prescott glances at him, and the remorse he sees there couldn’t possibly be the result of a blunt-induced psychosis. “Richard Cotton… Was he the one who murdered your bassist?”

Chapter Text

They end up in the basement, in Jonah’s Dungeon. Dylan Prescott takes in the posters hanging on the walls, crooked and peeling; the precarious piles of spiral-bound notebooks on the black decorative shelf that once occupied the upstairs’ hallway; the guitar case coffinating Jonah's Ibanez RG550 as Christopher recounts the story of his brother's disappearance and his friend’s death—his connection to it all, and how it thrust him headfirst into music, leading to the creation of Redshift, which was not so much a band as it was a memorial act. Dylan Prescott listens intently, having completely shifted personalities. Christopher still doesn't like him, but his company is no longer as unbearable as it was at the dinner table. He chooses to omit the fact that Dylan Prescott is sitting on the folding chair Mr. Cotton also chose to sit in during Christopher’s first guitar lesson. They're interrupted by Mariana an hour in, the surprise evident on her face when she finds them. She says goodnight to Christopher, and he promises her that they're fine—just talking.

Dylan Prescott, in turn, tells him everything he knows about Richard Cotton.

It was the summer of 1979 that they'd met. Dylan Prescott had turned 23 that June and was living in Portland, Oregon, working odd jobs—construction, painting murals, a little graphic design when he could land it—and feeling increasingly disillusioned with the people in his life. One night, drawn on strings by some higher-power above—call it fate or destiny or the irresistible pull of an undiscovered band—he wandered into a low-lit bar known for its grungy jukebox and grungier clientele and watched Break the Sky shake the foundations of the city with pulse-throbbing sound. By the time Dylan Prescott had caught his breath and the final note had melted into the roar of the crowd, he’d realized the bassist was staring at him. Smiling.

The Richard Cotton he describes does not fit into the soft-edged and circular shape Christopher has embedded in his mind. This Richard was sharper, larger, and un-contained. He was 25 and charismatic and “effortlessly cool,” according to Dylan Prescott. Richard had secluded him in a corner of the bar after the show, and in the conversation that followed, Dylan Prescott learned that he also played the guitar, could talk about Beethoven and Black Sabbath in the same breath, and had a magnetism that couldn't be explained—not in any pre-Stonewall way. They bonded over being drifters and a shared admiration for Sabbath’s Sabotage album, and at the end of the night, they had each other’s numbers in their respective pocketbooks.

For Dylan Prescott, the whole thing was an experiment. He'd never been with a man before or considered it seriously. But Richard had a pull. He made Dylan Prescott feel seen in ways women never quite had—not emotionally, anyway. He told himself it was curiosity, a phase—that he was straight. He still believes it most days, but if he's going to be honest, Richard’s the only one who made him feel that special kind of ache (Christopher does not ask for elaboration on that).

They started seeing each other regularly. Richard always called it “hanging out,” never dating. He'd bring Dylan Prescott to dive bars where Break the Sky played to rooms of drunk college kids and aging punks, then go home together and do things that most friends “hanging out” probably didn't do (Christopher also does not ask for elaboration on that). Richard would vanish for days afterwards, but he would always reappear like nothing happened. It was intoxicating to Dylan Prescott, but the deeper they got, the more uncomfortable he felt. Richard didn't like to be questioned on anything, from his past to the minute decisions he made day-by-day. He was hot and cold, lavish with praise one week and withdrawn the next. He was nice in a manner that prompted Dylan Prescott to spill the secrets of his soul so they might be devoured, but refused to give up any of himself in return. He hated talking about emotions—would be cruel and turn his shoulder on Dylan Prescott, as if expecting him to beg for forgiveness, then beg for forgiveness himself because he’d made Dylan Prescott beg first. He said things, sometimes, that made Dylan Prescott’s skin crawl, though he could list none of them in specific.

In early 1981, Dylan Prescott decided he’d had enough and broke it off. He stopped answering the phone, stopped going to shows, and when Richard cornered him outside a coffee shop to demand why, Dylan Prescott him the truth: You’re a fucking psycho, man. In the months they were together, Richard Cotton had not mentioned God or his faith once.

“Damn…” Dylan Prescott says, shaking his head. “Can't believe he became a teacher—and here of all places… Never seemed like his type of thing.” Another shake. “Must’ve been a horrible experience for your bro, being taught by that ass.”

“Jonah liked him a lot…” Christopher says, thinking.

Dylan Prescott grunts, scratching his belly contemplatively. “Maybe that changed later on.”

“Maybe…”

“Rick was good at getting people to like him. Jonah might’ve been too young to see how fucked up he was in the noggin.”

Christopher shakes his head, too, infected by Dylan Prescott’s troubled demeanor. What little moisture was left in his mouth has been sucked dry, the weight of everything that's been shared pounding at him like a hammer on shattered bone.

“I don't know, man,” Dylan Prescott says, hopeless.

It's 11:19 P.M. when Christopher escorts him out of the house. Dylan Prescott tells him to thank Mariana again for the amazing food, and says that his house is beautiful and his wife is beautiful and his son is beautiful—that Christopher is blessed beyond compare. Christopher says, “I know,” and promises to stop by the motel and play some of Jonah's music for him because Dylan Prescott asked him to before they left the basement, and feels he has to repay him somehow—for what, exactly, he can't name. Still, it seems like the right thing to do.

Dylan Prescott's smile stretches from ear to ear.

“Just what I needed, man.”

Chapter Text

Christopher kisses a sleeping Gabryle on the forehead and mutes the door with his palm as he leaves his bedroom. He does the same as he enters his own, lifting the covers slowly and slipping in softly.

There's no need. Mariana is awake, and she makes this known by sliding her hand over his chest—a path she knows by heart—crooking her head into his shoulder, curved for the shape of her.

“I'm glad he's gone,” she murmurs against his skin. “He gave me a bad feeling.”

“I didn't like the way he was talking about you,” Christopher murmurs back. “Or looking.”

“You better not have.”

Her lips find his pulse. He speaks around a storm clouding his vision, blocking the tracks to his train of thought.

“He told me things, Mari,” Christopher says.

“About?”

“Rick.”

He feels her muscles tense and removal of softness from his neck. Her nails dig half-moons into his shoulder. Christopher recites what Dylan Prescott already recited, omitting some parts here and there to make the tale more palatable. They stew in silence afterwards.

“How do you know he isn’t lying?” Mariana finally asks.

“I don’t. But I have a feeling he isn’t.”

“A feeling, Christopher?”

“What?”

“I think you need more than that.” Her breath minnows over his chest, funneling against the curve of the rolled-up blanket. “We don’t know this man. We can’t just trust everything he says.”

“I know.”

“Then why do you sound like you do?”

“I don’t. But what if he isn’t lying, Mari? What if…”

What if it leads from one thing to another? One answer to another? One question to a solution, and a solution to a solution? What if—when Jonah took all the keys in the world and left nothing for the people he abandoned—he forgot to nick a single one, and that one was in the possession of Dylan Prescott? What if a gay hippie could lead him to the truth after so many years?

“This feels different,” he finishes. “He knew Rick differently than any of us. We knew the church version. The teacher version. Prescott saw another side of him.”

“I don’t like how this sounds,” Mariana says.

“How does it sound?”

“Like something you’d lose yourself in.”

“I’m not losing myself in anything, Mari. I’m just… throwing possibilities out there.”

“I know what happens when you get too caught up in possibilities, Chris. You push people away. You lock yourself up. It takes a lot to drag you out.”

“You didn’t think that back then,” he objects. “When we were hunting down Rick. You believed in those possibilities. We looked into them together.”

“That’s not the same. There was real evidence. There were real dangers. And I did think that. Everyone did. Why else would I bring it up now?” She pauses. “I thought, after you found Danny… I thought for a time that you’d died in some way, too.”

It was why she'd kissed him that night in the barn, when the cicadas cracked cloyingly in the air and her lips first met his neck and tore his lungs. He took something sacred from her in those hours—selfishly, foolishly—because she'd offered it in hopes of getting him to feel something. He was too lost in himself to recognize the consequences, and yet he was blessed from it, anyway. Wrongly, unjustifiably. Blessed beyond compare.

“I’m right here, Mari. I’ll always be here. For you. For Gabryle. You two are everything to me. Possibilities won’t change that.”

Mariana’s hand moves up to his jaw, turning his head toward her. He can barely see her in the dark, but he can sense the outline of her: the arch of her cheek and the flush of her hair spread-eagled against the white comforter.

“Alright. Fine. Maybe you’re right,” she hums. “Right that he isn’t lying. Maybe there’s something still for you to learn. But Christopher… Rick is dead. Jonah is dead.” The words fall from her like nails; she sounds pained as she utters them. “Finding out the truth—whatever it may be—won’t change that. Peace can come from other things, too, you know.”

He swallows. “From what?”

She runs her thumb over his cheek. It speaks of the years she’s spent at his side, even before he slipped his ring on her finger. “All the things you have now—things you gained in place of what you lost. Your house, your work, your family…”

Christopher nods, eyes roving back to the ceiling, as if there’s something beyond the roof he’s trying to see. If he stares hard enough, the past will thin and reveal itself. The shape of Jonah’s laugh that now leaks from Gabryle mouth. The echo of Mr. Cotton’s voice, before it turned unfamiliar. But all he sees is stucco and shadows.

Mariana’s breath is feather-light against his collarbone. “You know what my grandmother used to say?”

“Yeah.”

He remembers from the first day she walked him home. There's always something good waiting around the corner, but if you keep your head down you'll miss it.

“Don’t keep your head down, Christopher.”

He takes a bit to reply. It isn’t because he disagrees, but because he doesn’t know how to hold both things at once, despite his age. The now and the then. The comfort of her warmth and the ache that lives beneath it. Mariana’s hand trails back down, resting over his heart. Sometimes she presses her head to it and counts its beat. She told him on their wedding night that she likes the way it tells her he’s alive and real and hers.

“I won’t,” he says, and means it at that moment, more than anything.

Chapter Text

He lets Gabryle choose where they'll ride that Sunday after another Thatcher-less service. Gabryle holds his chin, pretending to think hard. Christopher usually tries to predict their destination, but he knows it already. Before the arrival of Dylan Prescott the day prior, Gabryle had been begging to see Laura.

Mariana is more than happy with his decision, and as she's zipping a Tupperware box of cookies into Gabryle's backpack, she hints at Christopher that he should have a heartfelt conversation with Laura.

He narrows his eyes suspiciously. “About?”

Mariana shrugs pleasantly, handing the Sonic backpack to a buzzing Gabryle. “Anything on your mind. It's been so long since you've talked to her, you know.”

“It’s only been a couple days.”

“Potato potatoe.”

Gabryle is disappointed that he can't ride in the front, but Christopher is adamant that he stick to the back; he'd rather not get pulled over by the police. Laura's standing in her front yard with her hands on her hips, glaring at a thick patch of weeds. The roar of the Super Glide alerts their presence to her; she looks up just as Christopher is pulling into the driveway. Gabryle wriggles off his seat once there's enough room and launches himself across the green, backpack flapping. He chants her name as he attaches himself to her middle—a red, babbling leech.

“Jesus Christ,” Laura exclaims. “No wonder you Henrises are horrible at listening—got voices loud enough to block out every other sound.”

He smiles at her. “Deputy Henris reporting for duty.”

She smiles back, rubbing his head like a puppy. “Hi to you, too.”

Laura is one of Gabryle's most favorite people in the world. She was one of the first to hold him when he was born; he’d been crying up a storm that abated as soon as he was placed in her arms, and Christopher figures that the moment bound them somehow, in some inexplicable way. They speak a language no one else is privy to—understand the un-understandable about one another. Gabryle never has to ask a second time what Laura means and he listens to her word without question ( unlike your dad , Laura once said while appreciating how nice it was to have someone follow you unquestionably). He calls her Tater and she calls him Tot. He reaches for her whenever he's excited or nervous. She keeps snacks in her glove compartment for him, and her fridge has become a collage of his scribbled artwork. Laura likes to say her law enforcement days are long over, but she'll drop what she's doing in a heartbeat to play “Cop and Criminal” with him, where she's the cop and he's the criminal concocting elaborate heists for them to reenact. She gave him an old Ultraman figurine that looks like a melted boot for his fifth birthday, thinking it was something from Pokémon. Gabryle named it Chungasaur and forces her to battle against him with a knock-off GoBot from the 80s he called “Optimus Grime” (also a gift from Laura—she thought it was from Transformers ).

But today, she puts him to work on her weeds. Gabryle eagerly takes the green plastic bucket from her garage and crouches where she was previously standing, tongue poking out of his mouth as he excavates the dandelions and dollarweeds and chickweeds from the hard, parched dirt. Laura and Christopher move the plastic chairs from the backyard to the front and recline like royalty, watching the local peasantry slave for their scraps as they chat about the weather and the savanna’d social hierarchy of Coldwater and which is better: grilled cheese with olive oil and butter or bacon fat. Gabryle presents the weeds to Laura upon finishing and she rewards him with $10, as well as an ice pop from the collection she keeps for him in her freezer. He chooses grape and makes an offended noise when one is also offered to Christopher.

“But he didn't do any work!”

“That's true,” Laura considers.

“I pay the bills,” Christopher protests.

“You don't get rewarded for things you're already s’posed to do,” Gabryle says. He crosses his arms “Also, I'm the birthday boy. I'm turning eight in six days and you're turning 91 in March.”

Christopher sighs and gives it up. Gabryle then decides he wants to play on the tire swing Laura hung for him in the backyard, and so the chairs are returned to their original positions. The rope of the swing creeks as animatedly as the boy twisting it around and around. Christopher contemplates the heartfelt conversation he was ordered to have.

“You're contemplating something,” Laura comments, resting her cheek on her knuckles.

“Am I?”

“Anyone ever tell you that you wear your heart on your sleeve?”

Christopher frowns.

“I can see all the wheels turnin’ in that brick of yours.”

“Brick? Really?”

“You're as dense as one, Christopher, that I know for sure.”

“Thanks.”

“Mhm. Always nice to have someone around who keeps you humble, otherwise you might end up the wrong way.”

“What way is that?”

“Don't know.” She shrugs. “The 1812-invasion-of-Russia way, maybe.”

Christopher’s frown carves lines he's too young to have around his mouth. He watches Gabryle spin on the swing, listening to him sing off-tune. Christopher’s recently tried teaching him the basics of music, but they haven't gotten very far yet; Gabryle’s attention span is witheringly short, but he's as in love with the Ibanez in the basement as he is with Christopher’s Super Glide and Simon's drum kit. Simon has taken him on as his personal protege and they have lessons in Wes’s stinky garage every time he's in town—he thinks whoever manages to instill in Gabryle a greater pull toward their respective instruments, they can be accredited with whatever future success Gabryle finds should he become a musician and actualize the dreams lost to his forefathers.

“Do you think I go too far sometimes, Laura?” he wonders.

“What do you mean?”

“Do you think I get too caught up in things?”

“Most definitely.”

“Is that bad?”

“Eh. Depends on the circumstances. It's not inherently bad that you put your whole heart into things, Chris. The problems arise when you don't use your brain as well. The two have to be in balance. Can't tip the scale too far in one direction and expect things to turn out fair.” She observes him. “But I think you already know that.”

Christopher opens his mouth to reply, but the whimsical ping of his Nokia cuts him off. He unburies it from his jeans’ pocket and checks the number, thinking it must be either Raymond with details on their next project (a kitchen remodel for the Durlings) or one of the men who keep him on-hand for assistance at their farms. He's pleasantly surprised to find that it's Mariana.

“Mari,” he says, holding the Nokia to his ear with a grin. “What's up?”

Mariana’s tone wipes his face immediately.

“Christopher,” she says urgently. “The sheriff just called—she said she wants you at the station as soon as possible.”

Chapter Text

Laura takes them all down in her Jeep Liberty. Gabryle asks repeatedly where they're going and why, nearly flying out of his seat when they pull into the police station parking lot.

“Did you become a cop again, Tater?”

“No, Tot. We're here for something else.”

“What else?”

“I don't know yet.”

But Christopher sees the fixed-up Jaguar XJ on the far side of the lot and has an idea.

The Coldwater Police Station, like the rest of town, hasn't changed much over time. The building itself is low-slung, made of sun-bleached red brick with peeling white trim. Built sometime in the ‘60s, it's square and squat and more practical than it is pretty. A few police cruisers—Crown Victorias—rest crookedly under a rusted metal carport beside a municipal sign that reads, simply, COLDWATER POLICE DEPARTMENT and Serving since 1948 . The American flag waves at them from a tilted pole as they pile out of the Liberty. The jail running behind the station calls attention to itself by the narrow, slitted windows and tall fencing at the back, topped with barbed wire.

Scuffed linoleum tiles greet the three inside, beige-gray and yellowing from years of foot traffic. Pinned to the bulletin board near the entrance are public notices, mugshots, and a faded D.A.R.E. poster. A bench lines one wall—varnish worn from the behinds of worried or drunk visitors—and a glass window with a sliding tray separates the lobby from the reception desk; a corkboard of keys and a phone with a long spiral cord are visible through the partition. The air is like an old friend (or enemy) to Christopher: burnt coffee and bleach. Gia the Secretary’s desk is at the front, the sheriff’s office is at back, and between them is a shared space for the three deputies—a sparse jungle of metal desks and filing cabinets occupied by a single officer on duty. Beyond a thick, reinforced door in the back hallway lies a jail of three to four cells made of rust-flicked iron bars and beds bolted into the wall. It was here that Will was held before he was transferred to The Walls, then to the Jefferson City Correctional Center after its closing in 2004. Besides that is a small processing room with a fingerprint station and booking camera and a steel door that opens to a rear sally port where cruisers pull in to drop off detainees. Disrupting the careful disorder of the facility is a single communal holding cell for overnight stays, of which is not empty. Enclosed inside—his face pale between the bars he’s gripping—is Dylan Prescott.

“Hey, Little Dorito!” he calls, grinning.

Gabryle lights with recognition, about to run toward him. Laura snags his arm before he can take two steps.

“ Woah , there,” she says sternly. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Gabryle looks up at her. “I know him, Laura! He’s Daddy’s friend.”

Laura’s brow scrunches. She turns her head at Christopher. “You know this guy?”

“Uh…” Christopher starts. “Yeah. Friend is… a bit of stretch, but— ”

“Hell yeah he knows me! We’re thick as thieves!” Dylan Prescott interjects. He smacks his hands together in a mock prayer. “Chris, man, you gotta help me out here. This is all one big misunderstanding, alright? They’ve got the wrong guy— ”

“Keep it down in there,” Deputy Kyle Bledsoe orders (not to be mistaken for the Kyle who bullied Christopher in high school), feet propped on his desktop. He’d been a patrol officer in the ‘90s but decided to play a more active role in the force after Coldwater’s ugly truths came to light. His son, Dallas, is one of Gabryle's closest friends.

Kyle tips his hat at Laura, munching on a pink-frosted donut. “Afternoon, Sheriff.”

“Save that for Janice.”

“Old habits die hard.” He winks at Gabryle, and after Gabryle returns it he directs his attention to Christopher. “Lynn’s waiting for you in her office.”

His indifferent demeanor confounds Christopher. “What’s going on here?” he asks. “I thought Prescott was drunk.”

Deputy Bledsoe waves a hand. “She’ll explain.”

Laura’s concern hasn’t abated. “Gabe and I’ll wait out here for you,” she says, and Christopher barely has a chance to reply before the door of the sheriff’s office bursts open, belching out Kolton St. James, Grace St. James, and Sheriff Lynn. Kolton's usually immaculate hair is mussed, a five o’clock shadow dusting his jaw. Grace is slightly more put-together, but not by much. She appears to have made an attempt at curls, only to have abandoned it partway through so she could layer on half-finished makeup. Her lips curl into a red sneer once her fiery gaze alights on Christopher.

“Finally,” she growls, punctuated by a sigh from Sheriff Lynn. “Arrest him.”

Christopher blinks. “What?”

“Mrs. St. James— ” Sheriff Lynn tries.

“Can’t you see what's going on here, Lynn?” she decries. “He sent that man to threaten me! He's terrorizing my family and you're letting him run around unchecked! I voted you for sheriff because I thought you knew how to do your damn job .”

“Alright now, Mrs. St. James,” Officer Bledsoe chides, wiping sprinkles from his mouth with a napkin as he rises from his chair. “Keep calm. Carry on. Have a Snickers. This is a place of civil order. Besides…” He glances at Gabryle. “There's a child with us.”

Grace whirls on him. “You will not talk down to me! I could have you replaced this very instant—all I have to do is say the word! And that child — ” She jabs a finger in the direction Officer Bledsoe had glanced. “Needs to be taken out of his custody or he'll end up just like his father.”

“Hey, his dad’s a pretty cool dude,” Dylan Prescott chimes in.

“Shut up.”

Dylan Prescott shuts up.

Christopher stares at Grace, incredulous. “You don't get to threaten me like that,” he warns her.

“It isn't a threat, Mr. Henris,” she spits. “It’s concern. I'm looking out for the well-being of that boy.”

“Enough,” Laura says, stepping in front of Gabryle like a human shield. His eyes pop out from behind her. “Make your accusations in private, Mrs. St. James. This is between you, your husband, Mr. Henris, and whoever it is in that cell—no one else.”

Grace seems ready to object, but Kolton takes her wrist and whispers something in her ear that compels her to stomp back into Sheriff Lynn’s office; her expression that could scalp the skin off Christopher if he were any weaker of a man. Kolton tries putting his arm around her, but she shrugs him off. Sheriff Lynn looks at Christopher helplessly, holding the door open for him. He has no choice but to follow.

The story, as told to him once the door is shut, is not that Dylan Prescott was wandering around town drunk—as Christopher had believed it was—but that he'd been out in broad daylight this afternoon, trying to leave a successor to the dead crow left on their Jaguar two weeks ago on their doorstep. Kolton—playing with his children in the front yard—noticed a hooded man by the gate. He rushed out in pursuit of him, the dead bird discarded in the man's haste to get away. Kolton lost sight of him, but he wasn't willing to give up his pursuit. He continued down the road until he saw a figure in a black hoodie walking leisurely in the direction of town: Dylan Prescott.

Kolton held him hostage while he waited for the police and his wife to answer his calls. Dylan Prescott denied any accusation thrown his way, equal parts confused and annoyed. When he learned Kolton's identity, he called his whole family a “fucking joke, man.”

While in holding, Dylan Prescott explained that he was walking by the Thatchers because his curiosity about them had been piqued by Christopher. All he’d been doing was checking the place out—he hadn't realized he'd be detained for “bird murder.”

As soon as Grace heard Christopher’s name, she was certain he was the mastermind behind the entire thing, as well as every other harassment the Thatchers and St. Jameses had thus endured. She demanded that he be brought to the station. If Christopher wants to make threats, she'd said, then I'll give him the chance to come down here and say them to my face.

“I've made no threats,” Christopher denies, temper flaring. “And I’ve never sent anyone your way. I didn't even know Dylan was in town until yesterday.”

“So you have been in contact with him?” Grace pressures.

“Yes,” he confirms. “But only because he came to my house uninvited.”

“For how long?” This from Sheriff Lynn.

“From about 6:30 to 11.” 

“That sounds like plenty of time for brainstorming to me,” Grace says. “I'm sure you spent those five hours very wisely, feeding him all your wild little theories and ghost stories. What was it this time? Hm? Cotton was actually working for the CIA? Jonah's buried beneath our pool?”

Christopher clenches his jaw. If it weren't for Kolton erected like a physical barrier between them, he might have reached over and shook Grace by the shoulders until what little sense she has falls out of its nook.

“You've hated us for 15 years,” she continues. “Is it really that outlandish to assume that you would have a hand in all of this?”

“I've never once said that I hated any of you.”

“You don't need to. You know what? We should just drop all pretenses of civility and— ”

Sheriff Lynn holds up a hand to silence them. “Mrs. St. James, unless you've got actual evidence Mr. Henris orchestrated any of this, I'm not arresting him.”

“I don't need evidence to know what's going on here,” Grace says icily. “But don't worry. I do, anyway.”

Kolton's mouth flattens. Befuddlement warps Christopher’s expression. Sheriff Lynn turns a shade serious. She crosses her arms as Grace roots in her tote bag—a Bottega Veneta Arco in woven leather—and splays across Sheriff Lynn's desk handfuls of letters, tens in cream white and neatly torn across the lips.

Christopher stares at them.

“I was hoping I wouldn't have to show these—seeing how little dignity you have left to lose, Christopher—but you leave me no choice.” Grace's scowl takes on a hint of pleasure. Why, exactly, is unclear. She addresses Sheriff Lynn directly, as if neither Christopher nor her husband are in the room. “Christopher has been impersonating his brother for years through these, sending them to me as some form of sick, twisted torture. 1992 all through 1997.”

Sheriff Lynn takes one of the letters and examines it in the light streaming through the window at her back.

“These are all from… Nathan Stone,” she says. “And from different towns.” More letters are sifted through. “Knoxville, Albuquerque, Denver…”

“It's all fake,” Grace says, not a hint of doubt in her voice. “All of it. Nathan Stone is a code name Jonah used with Will when they were kids. Christopher picked locations at random and pretended to send them from those places but he was here —in Coldwater—the entire time, and he chose Nathan Stone as his alias because he wanted to make it seem like Jonah is out there somewhere—that he’s undercover or something, hitchhiking across the country. He knew that I’d know who Nathan Stone is.”

“Mrs. St. James… Forgive me, but this all seems a bit… far-fetched.”

Grace raises a manicured brow. “Really? Because his silence is speaking volumes.”

Sheriff Lynn gives Christopher a hard look. “Well, Christopher? What do you have to say about this?”

Nothing. Christopher has nothing to say. He takes one of the letters himself and peels it open gingerly, docile in his handling. The papers inside the envelope are stale and simple, ripped from a notebook, and their handwriting speaks to him from memory; from composition books; from the days of his childhood, when Jonah tried teaching him how to write his name and wrote his own as an example, the words crooked and wanting. He reads the first paragraph.

It was so cold while I was writing this, he reads. I swear the wind found every hole in my coat. But guess what I found… A diner that sells jumbo triple-chocolate milkshakes. You know I'm not a milkshake kind-of-guy but the one I got there was really damn good… You'd go crazy over it. You have to let me know if your teeth have rotted out yet. I might consider wasting my money getting one for you if they haven't. I’d bet they have if I actually had money to bet with.

Christopher’s hand shakes. The floor tilts. He tosses it onto the table, fingers burning, and reaches for another. He finds the same handwriting and tone. A third—the same. A fourth—the same. He clutches the fifth so hard the paper nearly tears.

“How the hell did you make these?”

Grace's eyes turn to slits. “That's what I should be asking you.”

“I didn't—I’ve never seen these in my life… How— ”

Her face cracks—a miniscule fracture in her vitriol before it hardens again. “Don't play innocent, Christopher. I'm done with your games. You’re the only one in this goddamn town who knows about Nathan Stone and Bruce Fox. Just admit the truth and say whatever it is you need to say that’ll make you feel better so we can all get on with our fucking lives.”

Kolton talks for the first time since he relayed his side of the events, closing his eyes exhaustedly. “Please, Christopher,” he implores. “Let’s just put this behind us and… Start over, I guess. If that’s possible. I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”

“It’s not me,” Christopher says faintly.

It's Jonah—Jonah scrawled all over these letters. But Jonah is gone. Jonah is dead. Jonah has no hand by which he could pen them. It’s what Christopher has believed all these years. It’s the narrative he has clung to when all other ground has fallen away. It’s the island he's moored himself to while the tide rises and the earth is washed clean of all civilization and all sin. Jonah is dead. Jonah cannot be alive. Not now, after all these years, after his non-funeral, after Christopher bloodied his hands trying to piece back together everything that fell apart once he finally accepted that Jonah is gone and dead. Jonah cannot be cruel. Jonah cannot be alive.

“Don’t lie to me!” Grace trills. Kolton takes hold of her as she all but lunges at Christopher. He speaks to her soothingly as Sheriff Lynn comes around the desk to provide further restraint, but Grace's desperation and anger overpower the remaining calm. “Jonah is dead , you—you bitch! You’re the only one—You’re the only one!”

Christopher has nothing to say, and so he says nothing at all.

Chapter Text

Christopher voluntarily stays at the station until matters are resolved. He asks Laura if she could take Gabryle home and tell Mariana what’s going on, then requests that she bring “one of the notebooks from the basement back to the station. Any of them will work.”

“Are you sure you should stay?” she asks. “You don’t look good.”

“I’m fine,” he replies, barely feeling the coil of Gabryle’s arms around his neck when he hugs him goodbye.

Dylan Prescott is detained on suspicion while they investigate. Grace and Kolton are separated from Christopher to avoid further conflict, and the letters taken in as evidence to be photographed, bagged, tagged, and logged. In private, Sheriff Lynn volleys a series of questions at the St. Jameses: Did the letters come normally in the mail? Are there any more of them? How many other people know about them? Have you previously reported receiving the letters? If they were a concern, why didn’t you?

Their answers—embellished with theatrical anguish—are as follows: Yes, they came normally in the mail. No, these are all of them. No, no one else knows about them—I only told Kolton this morning. No, I haven’t previously reported them. I didn’t want to give Christopher the satisfaction of a response.

Statements are taken in the following days as Sheriff Lynn reviews the letters. There are 34 in total, meaning about five to six were sent per year between 1992 and 1997. 1995 is the highest with seven. Sheriff Lynn asks that Laura help her arrange them in order across her desk. They start with the oldest and end with the latest: February 14, 1992, and June 28, 1997. They read them through twice. They stitch Nathan Stone’s life in a patchwork of color and longing, mounting anguish in the curl of every s he writes. He hops from state to state, city to city, job to job, mattress to street. He's always broke but he never begs for money. He has a family he loves very much but hasn’t seen in a very long time. He wants Bruce Fox to visit him in Natchez, Baton Rouge, Houston; Bakersfield, Oakland, San Francisco. Just for a day. Just for an hour. Just let me know you're okay. I heard something on the news this morning. I don't know what I'll do if it's true .

They note several important things about Nathan Stone. The first is that he's a musician; he busks periodically for money, and if he wasn't able to play on his travels then he would've long lost his mind. What instrument that accompanies him, however, is unclear and never mentioned. The second is that he’s in physical pain; he doesn't linger on his maladies, but the descriptions of them are detailed enough for the two to conclude that his condition has worsened over time. The third is that he's Christian, but his relationship with God is incredibly strained, but healing. These passages are frequent and devastatingly honest.

On March 11, 1994, he wrote that, You used to question God all the time, Bruce. It used to annoy the hell out of me—you know that. And you know I've always hated that one thing non-believers love to ask (and they’re so damn smug when they ask it, too, as if it hasn’t been asked a thousand times before). It’s usually something along the lines of, “How can God be loving if He allowed all this evil to happen to me? To her? To him?” I really hated it, even though I started asking it myself at one point. Still kind of do. Lately it’s less of a question and more of a bruise I keep pressing on. It doesn’t exactly feel like doubt anymore, and I don’t necessarily think asking it means I’ve stopped believing.

On October 31, 1994, he wrote that, I used to think God only felt far when I stopped praying. But now, even when I pray, the silence echoes so loudly. I’m keeping at it, though. I know the verses—I told them to you once. I know the promises. It’s just… hard to believe they apply to me right now. But that’s part of faith—praying even when it feels like no one’s listening. I’m still afraid. I’m trying to believe that doesn’t disqualify me.

On February 22, 1995, he wrote that, There’s a term I’ve been thinking about a lot recently: theodicy. The justification of God’s goodness in the face of evil. I think I talked to you about it. Philosophers like Plantinga and Hick argue that evil exists because of free will, or because suffering builds the soul. I used to hate that second explanation. I didn’t want to be a ‘soul-building’ case study. If God needed a sermon illustration, He could’ve picked someone else. I didn’t need to learn anything this way. I hated that I felt that I’d been made into a lesson. The point, however, isn’t the reason why, but what I choose to do with it.

On July 9, 1995, he wrote that, I read Psalm 22 today. The first line wrecked me: ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ I’ve said those words in my head so many times it feels like I don’t know how to say anything else. Jesus said them, too. At the height of His suffering, He asked the same question I’m asking. That doesn’t answer everything, but I feel like it changes something. Maybe. I don't know. If even God cried out to God, my doubt might not be a failure.

On January 6, 1996, he wrote that, I hate feeling dirty. And I don’t mean physically. I keep having nights where I wake up and feel so disgusted with myself I want to die. I’ve prayed, confessed, and cried like a child. Sometimes I still feel the same. It’s taught me that feelings aren't always truth. God’s forgiveness isn’t revoked because I can’t always feel it. I haven’t given up. I can’t—not when I still hope to see you again. The thought keeps me going, even when everything else feels far.

On May 18, 1996, he wrote that, The early church debated whether Christ truly suffered or only appeared to. The Docetists couldn’t fathom that God would really bleed—really die. I think what matters is that He really bled and that He chose to hurt. Because if God can enter into suffering, then mine isn’t wasted. My pain, even if I never understand it fully, isn’t meaningless.

On June 20, 1996, he wrote that, I’m not sure what to call what I feel for God. It’s not tidy. Sometimes it’s fear. Sometimes longing. Sometimes quiet awe. I still remember every hymn I ever sang. I’ve never missed a day of church. I never stopped reaching out, even when I thought I’d given up. Faith isn’t the absence of doubt, but the choice to keep reaching anyway—the decision to keep writing when no one writes back.

On April 9, 1997, he wrote that, Today, at the hospital, I saw a man hold his dying wife’s hand and pray. His voice cracked, but he still said, "Thank you,” to God. Not please, not why… Just, “Thank you.” I haven’t done that in years. It made me wonder if gratitude is the beginning of trust. I used to think peace is the absence of pain—like how faith is the absence of doubt—but I might’ve had it wrong this whole time. I don’t think I’m there yet—to the point where that man is. But I want to be. I really want to be, Bruce.

Sheriff Lynn and Laura are unconvinced that letters were written by Christopher, but he’s the only suspect they have and probably the one most capable of copying Jonah’s handwriting—a direct match with the handwriting in an old notebook his brother used to write music in. Sheriff Lynn brings him in for questioning, and once she’s read off all her highlighted passages, Christopher tells her that whoever wrote them must have known his brother was struggling with his identity—with a kind of love that is biblically wrong. She then asks him if he thinks there’s any possibility they could’ve been written by Jonah, or that he is somehow—impossibly—alive.

He stares at her for a moment. He says no.

Chapter Text

Christopher's week has been full of mindless musings. It spins him in frustrated circles, trying to puzzle out who the forger is and debunking the possibility that it could be the one person it can't be—logically, physically, legally. He distracts himself with the remodeling work in Lyons, but every time he looks at Raymond, suspicion creeps in, leaving him half-insane. Raymond knew Jonah was gay all the way back in high school, and he would also have had the knowledge necessary to write the religious passages. Could Jonah or Will have told him about Bruce, and if so, why? And why does Christopher always get ahead of himself as soon as the opportunity to do so is presented? Why does he grasp at straws and force them together? Why is he suspicious of every person in his life? He knows Raymond's a man more clean of wrongdoings than a newborn lamb, and to question his innocence fills Christopher with shame. But if he isn't questioning someone, then what else is he to think?

So at home—in a bid to silence his thoughts—he sequesters himself in his workshop and applies the finishing details to Reverend Cates's commission, the work effervescent under a bench light. The motions are routine, steady, precise—comfortingly familiar. With a 600-grit sandpaper, he refines the petal curves and feathers the edges of each gouge line until they blend like relief against the grain. Christopher wipes down the surface with tack cloth, then gently cleans the lighter flourishes with a soft-bristled brush. He uses a fine chisel to sharpen the tips of a few letters on the offering box that was also commissioned and corrects the serif on the word heart , which had chipped slightly. A final, thin layer of oil wax blend is applied to the wood with a lint-free rag; his cluttered hovel becomes infused with an earthy beeswax smell as he buffs the surface, gentle and slow. He whispers the verse aloud: For where your treasure is, there will your heart also be . For a time, he forgets, and there is only him and the simplicity of his labor.

“Gabryle's in bed.”

Christopher jumps slightly—a rare occurrence. He's never startled by Mariana.

“I still have to say goodnight,” he murmurs, lowering his rag. His wife's arms wrap around him from behind. She nuzzles into his shirt, breathing him in.

“You still can.” A short lapse. “He’s sad that you're sad.”

Christopher stiffens. “He thinks I'm sad?”

“Well… Gabryle asked why you're being so quiet. He was wondering if it was because of him. It's always the first thing he thinks, you know.”

He shakes his head, combing his fingers through his hair. Guilt bricked at his ribs. Of course Gabryle would blame himself. Of course he would think he did something wrong. “I didn't mean… I’m sorry. All this stuff with Grace… And those letters. It's…” 

Mariana shifts in front of him, her hand reaching up to cup his cheek. “Christopher, you have nothing to apologize for. Things have been hard for all of us recently.”

“I shouldn't be letting it affect me,” he mutters, covering her hand with his own. “It's stupid.”

“It’s not.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Don't say sorry to me again or I won't forgive you.”

He breathes out. “Alright.”

Her hand slips from his own and over his shoulder. Her head falls onto his chest, an un-burdening weight. She's warm, inviting him to talk.

“Whatever it is that you're thinking of… You can tell me. Always. You don't have to carry it by yourself.”

His chin nests atop her head. “I know.”

Mariana doesn't press him to go on, though he knows she wants him to. Something on his workbench catches her attention before she can prompt him to reveal more.

“Is that… A hedgehog?” she asks, a small smile spreading across her face. Mariana breaks free of him to observe the tiny, spikey animal he’d been working on at the same time as Bukoski's deck. She eyes it admiringly.

“Yeah,” he answers fondly. “For Gabe. Doesn't exactly look like the kind he likes, but… Oh, well.”

She beams at him. “I think this kind is cuter.”

“You want one?”

“Of course. A matching one with Gabryle.”

“I'll consider it… if you can pay the fee.”

She sighs exaggeratedly. “Another fee?”

Christopher nods grimly. “‘Fraid so.”

“What will it be this time, then, Mr. Henris?” She puts the hedgehog back onto the table. “More staring?”

He steps forward, grabbing under thighs and lifting her onto the table—gripping the curve of her hips. Christopher kisses her chastely, gentle and slow. Her arms cage his neck. He traces his lips along her jaw, down the smooth column of her neck—holds her tightly as her breath hitches.

“Sometimes I can't believe you're mine,” she says abruptly. The hum of her voice reverberates through him, as if he's grazing the words themselves.

“I think that all the time about you,” he replies, hands drifting up to circle her waist.

“No, Christopher,” she insists. “Really.”

“I do mean that, really.”

“But you didn't like me the way I liked you when we were younger…” She shakes her head. “I had such a big crush. It's ridiculous. Even after you pushed me away, I never did stop wanting you all those years. I don't know why.”

Christopher stills. “You’re unfathomable to me, Mari. I was horrible.”

“You weren’t all bad, but that's mostly true…” she says teasingly. “If Gabryle does the same things you did at that age, I’ll wonder where I went wrong.”

“He won't,” Christopher promises. “He's not stepping within a three-inch radius of a house party or having kids till he's married and financially stable. I'll make sure of that.”

“Taking your duties seriously, I see.”

“No other way to take them.” Now at her collarbone, ghosting the thin, burning flesh. Mariana’s fingers tangle in his hair. She asks him to be a gentleman and take her to their room. Christopher does so without fuss, fumbling with the workshop lights while balancing her in his arms. I love you, she whispers in his ear in the dark. I'm the luckiest woman alive. She does not understand that it’s him who's the lucky one, and that she is the portent of luck with her ageless patience—the quiet herald of every good thing. She will always be the grace he will never deserve.

Chapter Text

Christopher wakes before his alarm and rubs the sleep from his eyes, trying his hardest not to wake Mariana as he disentangles himself from her cocoon. She remains fast asleep as he escapes the house and pilfers from his workshop for the new Nintendo GameCube and a small wooden crate of about a dozen hand-carved animals he's been working on since spring. He arranges them on the coffee table in the living room, then takes the presents from the top shelf in the coat closet Mariana has been setting aside money from the grocery budget to buy: a dinosaur shirt, a Super Mario Bros. shirt, and toy slingshot set with rubber ammo.

Christopher does his daily chores around the farm before he starts on Gabryle's favorite breakfast: chocolate chip pancakes with lots of syrup, butter, whipped cream, and sprinkles, somewhat afraid he’ll give his son a heart attack as he flips them. He’s working on the sausage when Gabryle bounds down the stairs, so full of energy he may as well have been up all night. Mariana follows in his wake, yawning as Gabryle runs straight for the coffee table. He douses excited exclamations onto each of the gifts in turn, lining the carved animals across the couch: a wolf, a bear, a fox, a rabbit, a hawk, a monkey, a dog, a giraffe, a lion, a horse, and the hedgehog. Christopher sanded and finished them with a thin, natural oil to bring out the woodgrain.

“I’m naming it Sonic,” he declares.

“I thought you liked Shadow more,” Christopher says, setting their plates on the table.

“Sonic’s funnier, Daddy. You should know this.”

Gabryle bites his lip in his seat as they sing him happy birthday—Christopher filming—and demolishes his pancake-cake in less time than it took to make it. Mariana dresses him in a pair of canvas shorts and the dinosaur shirt and a layer of sun screen while he’s distracted with opening his GameCube. Christopher ferries them in the pickup and through the late-morning to a spring-fed pond about 20 minutes south of town. It isn’t too developed or well-known to outsiders—nor is it polluted with garbage and the ashes of dead brothers—so it’s Christopher’s preferred spot for fishing and picnicking and swimming. He hooks bait onto Gabryle's rod, demonstrating how to throw it out and reel it back in—a skill Christopher has only half-developed. Fishing’s never been his thing, but it seems to be a favorite activity amongst the other fathers and sons he's acquainted with. The heat is a murmur, the waters of the pond tinted a cool blue-green. The edges are shallow and bedded with stones instead of muck, so it's easy to wade in. Tall reeds and cattails grow along the shoreline, dazzled by dragonflies and spotted with water lilies. The pond itself is about the size of a football field and tucked inside a small wooded hollow, shaded by oak and sycamore trees.

Mariana watches from the same red-checkered picnic blanket they'd used during the Fourth, glimmering in the shade of sweetgum. Cyndi Lauper plays from a CD of her favorite songs as Gabryle catches his first bluegill and Tears for Fears during his second. He whoops excitedly, asking if they can start a fire and fry them up. Christopher reminds Gabryle that he doesn't even like the taste of fish as they head back to the blanket, no catches of his own to show for his long wait. He complains about this to Mariana, who rubs his back with faux sympathy and a conciliatory peck on the cheek. Gabryle pretends to wretch, so Christopher chases him back to the water and bundles him in his arms, eliciting shrieks as he swings him around. He rolls up his pant legs so they can venture into the shallow and play pretend. Gabryle takes on the role of an Amazonian explorer and Christopher the crocodile hunting him. It takes much effort, but eventually Mariana is persuaded to get her feet wet. Gabryle accidentally drenches her with a big splash of water and starts to cry; Mariana drenches him back to abate his tears, and they all take part in a vicious water fight with no clear winner (though Gabryle insists it was him and anyone who disagrees is a four-eyes like Si).

Mariana draws Gabryle into her lap as they dry on the blanket in the sun, cupping his face in her hands. She kisses him on the forehead, the nose, the eyelids—his right cheek and his left. Gabryle giggles, trying to crawl away because her lips are ticklish. She drags him back and buries her nose in his red tresses, eyes bright with unshed tears. Christopher notices in an instant and asks her what's wrong, draping his arm over her back.

“It’s nothing,” Mariana laughs, watery. “I was just thinking about how I want him to stay my baby forever.” 

“I ain't a baby,” Gabryle says happily, oblivious to his mother's heartache.

“I know, Gabey.”

She whispers something in Spanish in his ear. Christopher’s in the process of learning the language, but his work gets in the way of regular study. He can understand it better than he can speak it. Eight years old already … she says. How did my little boy grow up so fast?

Gabryle answers in kind. ‘Cause I eat a lot of cookies.

They stop at the Main Street diner on the way home, where Christopher allows Gabryle to have a banana split all to himself. It turns out to be too much ice cream for an eight-year-old and his parents end up sharing the leftovers. All the sugar in Gabryle's system leaves him pinging off the walls as Christopher’s setting up the GameCube. They play Super Smash Bros. Melee together, as they often did with the first GameCube before its untimely death. Christopher picks Bowser by accident and grumbles under his breath every time Gabryle's Pikachu zaps him off the platform. Mariana makes a small dinner and, once their bellies are full, they go outside so Gabryle can play with his slingshot. He shoots first at the chickens, which Mariana brings a swift end to, then at Christopher, which she allows with a content smile.

Gabryle's energy starts to flag near 8 P.M. Christopher carries him inside and lays him on the couch. Mariana and Christopher take up the remaining space to watch a movie together as Gabryle dozes, and Christopher does not think of anything in that moment but his happiness.

Chapter Text

All good things come to an end, and today’s end arrives with Dylan Prescott at the door.

Christopher stares at him when he answers it, similar to the way he had when Dylan Prescott initially came knocking. 

“Hey-oh, Mr. Henris!” he greets. “How ya doin’?”

Better when you weren't around , Christopher thinks. “What are you doing here?” he asks tonelessly.

“They released me today,” Dylan Prescott explains, scratching his little paunch. “They’ve got an idea who the real perp is, so they're goin' after him now. I'm leavin’ town tonight before they can change their minds. Adios , Coldwater. Wish I could say I’ll miss ya.” He lowers his voice and leans in, cupping a hand around his mouth. “I definitely won't, dude. This place is fuckin' insane.” Leans back. Normal volume. “Anyway, I thought I'd stop by and take you up on that concert I was offered.”

Christopher excuses himself for a minute to discuss with Mariana. She worries her lip between her teeth and crosses her arms under her chest.

“I don’t like him, Christopher,” she whispers. “He’s caused us enough trouble as it is.”

“I know,” he sighs, dragging his hand over his face. “But a couple songs won’t hurt. Five at most. I’ll do it out in the yard so he isn’t around Gabryle. Then he’ll be out of our hair for good.”

Mariana still seems skeptical, but she nods and returns to their movie. Tumbling across her folded legs is blue yarn for a small winter hat to match with the one she made for Christopher. The cords wrap around his mind as he carries out the acoustic guitar Mariana gifted him for Christmas last year from the corner of the living room and leads Dylan Prescott to a set of wooden chairs on the patio behind the house, roosting in the presence of nesting chickens. He starts a fire in the iron firepit and makes idle conversation. An orange flame flickers and enlarges, commanding him to sit. He does so and settles the guitar on his lap—a cadaver laid before a mortician—and takes from his jacket pocket a cloth he uses to clear atomic dredges of dust off the strings and body. Christopher checks the tuning by ear, going a little lower than standard. He runs his fingers over the fretboard, feeling for any stickiness or rough spots. Strums a few chords and listens. It isn’t perfect, but it’s good enough. He doesn’t want it polished.

“It’s been a while since I’ve played for someone other than family,” Christopher says, shifting the guitar onto his knee. He leans forward, bracing the weight of it against himself. “I might not sound like you remember.”

Dylan Prescott—his legs kicked out in front of him—grins, unbothered. “‘S’alright, man. Wasn’t expecting you to.”

“Well… I hope I don’t disappoint.”

“I’m a hard dude to disappoint.”

Christopher chooses four songs to perform for Dylan Prescott, all of them different from the ones Redshift played at the basement gig. He doesn’t try to recreate the original sound—that’s impossible on an acoustic—but he keeps the rawness. He strums harder than usual, and for the more aggressive riffs, he palm mutes lightly near the bridge, pressing the edge of his picking hand into the strings as he strums. They buzz and jangle, rough and alive. The parts that would have been fast, shredding leads he adapts into plucked, broken chord progressions, letting the notes ring out sharp and clear into the broiling air. He uses hammer-ons and pull-offs to simulate the fluidity of Jonah’s solos, though everything’s stripped down and mournful without the Ibanez. Christopher’s voice is smooth and rough, deeper with time and infused with memory. A part of his teenage-self flickers to life with the scrape of his fingertips and stumble of rough patches, raging and hardened. It softens his adult-self like water leveling the stones of a riverbed, a lakebed, a spring-fed pond starred with blossoms of pink and white lilies and his son’s laughter. He imagines a third wooden chair—perhaps across from him or next to Dylan Prescott—and a man with red curls and brown eyes and milk-pale skin sitting—perhaps smiling, perhaps tilting his head in thought. The man is older than he remembers, 15 years of wear etched into the hunch of his back and the scratchy down of his jaw. He leans his elbows on his knees. He still wears his silver cross necklace. It glints in the firelight. A flame un-doused and a love un-forgotten. A stranger.

The fourth song comes to its close, but Christopher suddenly does not want to stop. He fumbles with the strings, frowning. Dylan Prescott taps his foot to the beat as Christopher draws out the beginning to a fifth song—a song he has never attempted to perform. The song at the very end of Jonah’s DO NOT TOUCH!!! composition book. The lyrics are odd on his tongue, chafing him in a way that feels wrong and right in a single note. Dylan Prescott’s tapping tapers to silence. He listens raptly, widening his eyes and loosening his jaw.

All four minutes of the song’s duration are agonized. Christopher lets the last chord clot in the dark and nine o’clock clouds. It floods between them, unfinished. Dylan Prescott lets a few seconds inch past them, as if hoping it’ll reach a resolution, but none comes and his clapping cracks in the yard, thunder-like. His smile is wider than Christoper has ever seen it.

“Holy shit, dude, that might’ve just changed my life…”

Christopher returns his smile, but there isn’t much strength behind it. He feels like his intestines have been ripped out.

“Whoo!” Dylan Prescott re-settles into his chair. “Damn, man! You shoulda told me you know Kohen Roberts! Love that guy.”

“What?”

Dylan Prescott looks at him expectantly. “You know!” He lifts his arms as if Christopher is supposed to know what the hell he’s talking about. “Kohen Roberts! The guy who wrote that last song? Always been my favorite of his. It’s so… unfiltered. Yeah… That’s the word. Been lookin’ for that for ten years.”

His smile slips. “No… I don’t know any Kohen Roberts.”

“Huh?”

“My brother wrote that song, not… whoever it is you’re talking about.”

Christopher’s bewilderment transmutes itself into Dylan Prescott’s features. The following sequence of emotions—confusion, cogitation, realization—that cross Dylan Prescott’s face will cross Christopher’s mind every time he steps onto the patio from now on and into the far and distant future, a truth ripped out of the black abyss where it should have stayed.

“That’s who Little Dorito reminds me of…” Dylan Prescott breathes. “Holy shit.”

Chapter Text

Dylan Prescott was 36 years old when he was drifting through Knoxville Tennessee, living in a run-down rental house on the outskirts of the city. He and a couple of friends were barely scraping by with the earnings from their odd jobs, but they were free and they were happy. Their house was messy, their music was loud, their girls were great; Dylan Prescott thought it was the epitome of what all people should strive for in life.

It was winter that night that he stumbled across Kohen Roberts—wet and sleety. He and his roommate Trey had gone to a gas station for smokes and coffee when they spotted him sitting out front, arms tucked into a threadbare army surplus jacket and a backpack at his feet. He looked sick—shivering and white as the snow at their feet—but when Trey offered his cup of coffee, he took on new life, smiling warmly at them.

“Appreciate it,” he said.

They sat with him on the curb and chatted, a little and a lot. He was quiet and soft-spoken, but a good conversationalist. He knew how to lather his full attention onto the other person—or people, in this situation. His hair was a violent shade of red, and though it was shaggy and unwashed it didn’t detract from the subdued magnetism of his appearance. His grin was infectious, and his eyes were akin to two pieces of chocolate. Sweet is how Dylan Prescott would go on to describe him.

“You got somewhere to be?” Dylan Prescott asked, half on impulse. “‘Cause we got floor space and heat.”

“Oh…” he said, but there was hope in it. Longing. Around his neck was a cross necklace that reflected the world around him in silvery redirections. “I don’t wanna impose— ”

“Fuck imposing, man. That’s such an 80s concept.”

“Well… If you really mean it…”

“Hell yeah. First things first, though—Dylan Prescott. Terry Owens.” Terry waved. “You?”

He took a minute to reply. “Kohen Roberts.”

So the kid stayed at their run-down rental house. It wasn’t a formal arrangement—he was just there. No one questioned it. No one disagreed. Kohen was a quiet presence: always polite and trying to pull his weight (Dylan Prescott would sorely miss the way the dishes were magically washed and dried once he was gone). He didn’t volunteer much about himself; all Dylan Prescott and the guys knew was that he came from “somewhere out west,” had a sibling (younger or older—who was to say?), and had a beat-up acoustic guitar he treated like a million bucks. It was this facet of the kid that enraptured them—he was a god on that guitar. His rough, gravelly voice contrasted viciously with his demeanor and scratched a previously undiscovered itch in their brains. He played for them whenever it was asked of him—often, so to say—and never complained or hesitated. It was Russian roulette, trying to guess what song he would do next. Long or short? Heavy or mellow? A cover or an original? Most of the time, they hoped for the latter.

Kohen Roberts was odd, in some ways. He refused to go with them to bars or clubs. He wouldn’t touch alcohol if he was held at gunpoint. He didn’t bring home girls like they did, though they insisted he could probably get anyone he wanted with those “magic hands” of his. One time their teasing made him blush and fiddle with one of the rings on his fingers.

“I’ve got someone at home,” he said, and no matter how much they pushed and pressed and pried for information on this mysterious girl, he revealed only three things: that her hair was spun gold and her eyes were robin’s egg blue and that he was saving his kiss for her so she would be the only one to have it. They whooped and jostled, and he smiled as if it wasn’t them in that room, but the girl toting around his first kiss.

There were other oddities as well. For example, Kohen didn’t walk around half-naked like the rest of them and changed only in the dark, in the condensing sunset and the cusp of sunrise. He shared a room with Dylan Prescott and Trey—he seemed most comfortable in their presence—and must have thought the two of them were still asleep on a random Wednesday because he was slow to pull on his clothes that morning. But Dylan Prescott wasn’t, and he glimpsed him accidentally as he was shrugging on his shirt. He saw along his lower-left abdomen a long, uneven scar about four inches across, puckered and twisted at the edges. It was thick and ropy and waxy and ugly, and it occurred to Dylan Prescott that someone had tried to gut Kohen Roberts like a fish and was very close to succeeding. He knew what stab wounds looked like (one of his cousins had gotten into it once) and this was no accident.

Kohen caught his eye. Dylan Prescott didn’t say anything, and neither did he as he pulled down the rest of his shirt. He acted as if nothing had happened, and he never changed in the morning again.

Kohen would occasionally have coughing fits, too—into his sleeve or elbow and especially at night; Dylan Prescott could tell how desperately he was trying to muffle it. He would shiver even when they were inside and sheltered from the cold. He would grow flushed and sweaty and clammy out of nowhere. Sometimes he would wince while eating. Sometimes he wouldn’t eat at all. This was a point of concern for Dylan Prescott and the rest of the house as it became apparent that Kohen was rapidly losing weight. He was a tall kid—they could tell he used to have quite a bit of muscle on him—but he was flat as a board throughout his stay and thinning by the day. Some of the guys commented on his deterioration, warning he was gonna get knocked over by a breeze or advising that he stop eating like a 13-year-old girl or promising they could build back his physique if he came with them to the gym. Kohen’s response was always the same: I’m fine.

Dylan Prescott was almost certain that Kohen Roberts was not fine by any stretch of the word, and he figured it was his responsibility to help a dude out by virtue of being a good person. He never got the chance, though, because Kohen Roberts disappeared on April 30, 1992, after five months of charming them without even trying. He left nothing—no goodbye, no note, and no explanation.

This information is force-fed to Christopher like a poison. Dylan Prescott is blissfully unaware of how he’s strangling him, puncturing holes in the person Christopher has tried so hard to become. He ends his reminiscing with a single, simple line: I’ll never forget that last song he played.

Chapter Text

He calls Laura close to 10 P.M., alone with the roaring fire. Dylan Prescott has abandoned him and Coldwater for Minnesota. He wished Christopher luck as he left.

“Christopher?” Her voice is tinted with sleep.

“Laura,” he says. Words taste like ash in his mouth. “Do you remember the last place those letters were sent from?”

Shuffling. “What? I don't… Why?”

“I just need to know. I need to know.”

A long break. Christopher pulls taut as a string. The heat from the fire licks his face, beading sweat on his forehead.

“New York City.”

“What’s the address?”

“Christopher, what is this about?”

“Please, Laura. Just tell me.”

“I’m not ‘just telling’ you anything until you answer my question.”

He bites the inside of his cheek. “I won’t do anything with it. I swear.”

She sighs and tells him to wait a couple minutes. He rushes inside to grab a napkin and pen while she double-checks. St. Gabriel’s Church, he writes, shaking. 432 West 113th Street. New York, NY 10025.

“Thank you, Laura,” he chants. “Thank you.”

He hangs up before he can hear her reply.

Chapter Text

There is a simplicity in not knowing. A peace.

Mariana went to bed while Christopher was still outside with Dylan Prescott. When she went out to say goodnight, he didn’t grip her as tightly as he usually did. He seemed to look right through her. She stares at the ceiling of their bedroom and thinks of his eyes, icy blue and beautiful—primed for glacial blankness.

There is a simplicity in the way she loves him. It started simple, even: a crush born because he was dark-haired and quiet, unlike all the other boys in their class. That made him interesting. An enigma. He was the box and she was Pandora. His brother and his brother’s friend were the only people he seemed to smile around, and she liked seeing him with them because of that. She thought he had the prettiest smile.

By the time Mariana had reached her young adulthood, she could admit that what existed between them was a binding in teenage physical attraction. He was there, she was there, and the childish pining she’d had for him throughout their elementary school days had never really gone away. She hadn’t exactly loved him when she offered herself in that barn—she had been afraid for him. She wasn’t thinking about children, or forever, or the years they’d spend cleaning spit-up and teaching a little boy how to ride a bike. She was thinking: Please come back. Please remember how to feel. It hadn’t been her place, and she’d realized that as she lay in the dark afterwards, cold and barren as the vestiges of their heat exhumed through the cracks in the floor.

He did come back. Not all at once and certainly not cleanly, but he did. That night is perhaps the only thing about them that is not simple. He’s told her time and again how it claws at him all these years later—how he didn’t say no and didn’t stop to ask her why, or if she was sure, or if they’d regret it. He was drowning, and when she reached for him, he dragged her under, too. He says he knows what it cost her—that he saw it in the way she turned her face and how she tucked back into her clothes like armor. She didn’t cry until she thought he’d fallen asleep. He says he can never earn her forgiveness for it.

She tells him that they were both in the wrong, and she kisses him not because he’s dark-haired and pretty—or because she’s afraid for him—but because she loves him, deeply and truly. They made a choice in a time of pain and confusion, and it resulted in a life she used to dream of as a girl—in a child she would give it all up for if she had to. How many hours did she spend holding him when he was newly born, trying to memorize the weight of him against her chest before he slipped away from her again, into a different body and a different age? She used to whisper to him in the dark as he slept, tracing the soft curve of his cheek and the slope of his stubby nose. She basked in his baby scent and wondered how she—imperfect as she was—could have created something so perfect. It made no sense, conceptually. He had little bones and a little heartbeat, and she wanted to know him inside and out. How did those bones align? How did that heart pump? How would they grow, and who would he grow into around them? She knew three things for sure as he twitched in his sleep: she would love him no matter what he became, time was cruel, and there was nothing else she would ever want to be but his mother.

There is a simplicity in the routines she has crafted around his existence—in pulling up his socks and brushing his hair and kissing him goodnight. There is a simplicity in how she wraps her arms around his father and presses her ear to his chest, feeling his laugh rumble through her body—in knowing his favorite color and how he takes his coffee and what makes him come apart when he thinks no one is watching.

There is a simplicity in the present. He breaks into their room near midnight, desperation coated to his palms as he cups her face. Christopher speaks to her in low tones. Mariana understands only half the things he's saying, but a nail drives into her chest the longer he rambles. Dylan Prescott. Kohen Roberts. New York City. I have to know. I'll only be gone for a bit. I love you. She feels his callouses catch on her cheek and her infinite love for him wrapping vines around her lungs, climbing her ribs like a ladder to ensnare her heart. She says his name in confusion. His answer is to kiss her, gentle and slow. Fingers root in her hair, and she gets the inkling that he's trying to impart something to her that she doesn't want. All she wants is him.

“Don’t go,” she says against his cheek.

“Don't go,” she says as she takes his hand.

“Don't go,” she says as he presses his forehead to hers.

There is a simplicity in how he pulls away.

Chapter Text

He takes only the keys to the F-150, his phone, and his wallet—less than Jonah took when he ran away. He'd called Wes before he left the house and told him he was going to be out of town for a couple days; asked him to check on Mariana and Gabryle while he was gone. Wes said sure, of course, and there was judgement in his tone when he asked why Christopher was leaving out of nowhere at one in the morning. Christopher said he would tell him when he got back and hung up before he could hear his reply.

His hands are still shaking as he locks the door, making him stumble through every movement. It takes a couple swears but eventually the latch clicks. He turns—ready to descend the porch steps to New York City—and sees Laura in the driveway, leaning against the Jeep with her arms crossed. Her anger is quiet in the blood-blue of night.

“What the hell do you think you're doing?” she asks, and doesn't give him a chance to answer. “I knew this would happen. I knew it.”

Christopher presses his lips together. “I have to know.”

“Know what, Christopher? Those letters aren’t real—some stupid shit is trying to stir up this town so they can get under our skin— your skin. Don’t let them get away with it.”

He comes down and leans against the Jeep with her. He tells her about Dylan Prescott, Kohen Roberts, and how Gabryle is a copy-paste of the boy with the ugly scar on his abdomen and the magic hands. Laura stares at the ground, stiffer the more she listens. The moon is a waning crescent tonight—a thin tear in God's blanket of stars, bleeding yellow light.

“He could easily be lying,” she says.

“I know.”

Laura’s nails dig into the sleeve of her flannel shirt. “You don't care, do you?”

Christopher breathes in the cool, fresh air. He cares too much, on the contrary. But he does not say that. “If there's a chance Jonah's alive, Laura… I want to find him.”

“Kid… If he's alive and he didn't reach out to you all this time… I think that means he doesn't want to be found.”

“I know.”

Her anger filters into resignation. “There's nothing I can do to stop you,” she says. Not a question.

“There isn't.”

The planets blaze down on them, far removed from human wants and failings. Laura pushes silently off the Jeep, reaches for the handle of the driver's side door, and orders Christopher to get in—they’re leaving as soon as she refills the tank. He blinks at her and is met with a hard stare.

“I'm not letting you go alone.”

Chapter Text

Christopher can count with one finger the number of times he's left the great state of Missouri: once, to visit his maternal grandmother—Ingrid Gardner—in Iowa. She and his grandfather had Sally fairly late in life, and so they were dodderingly old by the time their daughter had children of her own. His grandfather had passed the year before their visit. She greeted them alone on the front porch to her farmhouse, leaning heavily on a cane.

Christopher remembers her hands most vividly. Her palms—cracked from a lifetime of canning vegetables, churning butter, and mending clothes—were strange against his nine-year-old skin as she patted his cheek. He also remembers the texture of her voice, like soft-dirt gravel as she commented on the shape of his nose and how it was just like his mother's. He was fond of her, and she became the first elderly person he could say he knew beyond a first name. He liked how she talked to him like he was older than his years, and how she kept caramels in a little glass bowl near her TV. While his dad and mom and Jonah were exploring the exterior property, he stayed in the house with Ingrid Gardner and listened to her lessons on the Gardner family history.

They'd come from a small rural village near the Danish border in northern Germany. Her great-grandparents—Wilhelm and Anneliese Gardner—arrived in America in the 1800s with little more than a battered trunk and a dream of owning land. They originally settled in Wisconsin, where Wilhelm worked as a farm hand, saving up money until they could head west. In the early 1900s—chasing cheap land and a chance to farm for themselves—the Gardeners moved to Iowa and bought a modest plot outside a small town. They were never wealthy, but they were proud.

Their son and Ingrid’s husband, Walter Gardner, fought in World War II, stationed in Europe. He didn’t talk about those years much, though he kept a single black-and-white photo of himself and his unit tucked into his Bible. When Walter came home, he married Ingrid—his childhood sweetheart—and returned to farming, the only life he knew. He’d lost lots of people overseas, and at times Ingrid wondered if she’d lost a piece of him as well. But he was always there for her—her anchor in the calm waters of their small world. Sally was a late blessing, born when they were starting to despair at the idea of never having children.

She was a little seed we didn’t expect to sprout, but oh, how she grew, Ingrid told him. She spoke of the following years with plain reverence—not flashy or grand, but riveted in love and labor. When Wilhelm had died, she’d closed her eyes and said a prayer, and went about the next day as if nothing had happened.

You didn’t cry? Christopher asked.

I know he’s someplace better now , she said. He’s waiting for me. No reason to cry at that.

Christopher thought about losing his dad or mom or Jonah. It was inconceivable to him—both the idea and the loss itself. He wondered if he’d be sad. After careful pondering, he decided that he would be, but only for a little while because he would know they were someplace better.

He’d forsaken that entirely when his brother was ripped away. There wasn’t any place better that Jonah could be other than with Christopher. When he lost his mom—then his dad—he came to the same conclusion.

The possibility of Jonah being alive changes things, but not really. What it changes is the perspective. Christopher supposes there are lots of places better than Coldwater, but he still doesn’t see how Jonah could choose to be anywhere that isn’t with him—not so abruptly. The ache of the knowledge that he might’ve made that choice—despite all its falacies—is crushed under the Jeep’s tires and brought back up for air as Laura carries him out of Missouri. It stays with him for the two days they spend on the road.

The first stretch of the journey is familiar: two-lane roads and rolling fields of lush farmland, glaucous under that slip of moon. Fences run ragged, a string of toothpicks piercing the unknown. Trees cloud where the land dips: oak, hickory, and stubborn sycamores. They rise and dip gently with the earth as they pick up I-55 North, merging onto I-70 East near St. Louis. They glimpse the Arch from the highway, stark against the haze of bottoming sunlight. The city’s skyline is modest, backdropped by the sprawling Mississippi. Christopher watches it drift past the car window, head leaned against the glass. He'd offered to drive an hour earlier, but Laura shut him down with a flat no. She hasn't spoken to him since.

Illinois is flatter, composed of soybean and corn squares. Silhouettes of water towers eclipse towns like his own, and yet they are so unlike Coldwater and its miseries they may as well be different countries altogether. Gas stations and diners with hand-painted signs and empty parking lots wave at them every few dozen miles.

They stop at a Waffle House near Effingham for breakfast. Laura orders black coffee and two eggs with toast. Christopher gets the Classic Blend and Danish of the Day, which goes unfinished. He takes it with them as they cross into Indiana—as crops thicken and branch out into deciduous forests. Billboards for religious attractions, fireworks, and RV sales dot the highway. The road straightens into a flat, elongated spine—a hypnotic length of tar devoid of curvature. Laura pulls into a gas station off a busy exit to fill the tank.

Skies turn overcast in the afternoon. Gray blots out the corn cobbled-sun and bluebird-sky, pale without the threat of rain. Trees thin as Indiana collapses into Ohio, broken apart by patches of suburbia. They reach Columbus as the day cycles back to its beginning, the first truly big city since St. Louis. Laura grumbles about the traffic, her lashes dusting sleepless shadows whenever she blinks. Her eyes shut the second she hits the pillow in their two-bed motel room, and though Christopher is tired, too, sleep does not claim him immediately. He sits first at the edge of the bed and talks to his wife and son over the phone. Mariana asks if he's eaten, if he's tired how—he's feeling. Yeah, I've eaten. Yeah, a little tired, but I'm okay. I'm feeling… odd. But I’m okay. Gabryle is mad that he didn't take him and Mom along, and—to Christopher’s horror—sounds on the verge of tears. He reassures him that it's a boring trip, anyway, and he'll be back home before he knows it. He promises to get him something—a toy, maybe, or a special candy. Anything he wants. Gabryle sniffles and says, “Okay.”

Christopher hangs up and brushes his teeth with a green plastic toothbrush from the motel store and splashes his face with water. He entombs himself on the lumpy motel mattress, drawn into a vortex of Jonah. Just Jonah. Nothing but Jonah.

What does his brother look like now? Like the apparition he envisioned across the firepit as he was playing for Dylan Prescott? Will his hair be short or long? His frame broader or leaner? Who has he loved, in the time he’d been gone? Who was the girl he was saving his first kiss for, and did he ever get to be with her?

He knows the answer to this question. When Dylan Prescott said she had golden hair and blue eyes, Christopher had known, intrinsically, who she was. She was not a girl at all, but a man in prison for life for the murder of a man living in New York City.

If Will had lied about killing Jonah, what else had he lied about? Had he lied about murdering Luanne Calloway as well? If so, why? Why had he been with her dead body the night of December 1? What could possibly justify facing the consequences of another’s crime and letting the real perpetrator roam free? And how does Mr. Cotton fit into it all? Had he been the one who killed Luanne and Danny? Had he been the one to give Jonah that scar?

 “I can hear your thoughts from way over here.”

Christopher exhales, weary. “You should sleep.”

“You should, too.” Laura sounds worn—tiredness that won't be soothed by sleep.

He turns onto his side, facing the fractured motel wall. It looks as crusty as his toothbrush. “I will. In a bit.”

Laura shifts in her bed, the blanket rustling like autumn breath. For a while, there’s only the sound of the air conditioner whirring and cars hissing on asphalt outside. Christopher listens to the unknown urban symphony with his eyes closed, failing to trick his mind into de-escalation.

“Christopher,” Laura says.

“Hm?”

“I don’t want you to be disappointed if we don’t find him—if he’s not there in New York. It’s been years since that last letter.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

“What will you do if he isn’t at St. Gabriel’s Church?”

“Ask around.”

“If we still don't find him? If there are no leads?”

“Then we go home.”

“And what will you do if he is there?”

Scream in his face, Christopher thinks. Cry like the 12-year-old I was when he left.

“Why are you interrogating me right now?” he asks.

“You haven't thought this through.”

He clutches his sheets tighter. “I know what I'm doing.”

“That's what it is every time, Christopher. You know what you're doing. You're not in over your head. You don't need anyone else's help. Every time.” More shifting. “So what will you do, huh? Drag him back to Coldwater? Lock him in your barn? What are you gonna do when he says he doesn’t wanna come back?”

“Okay, I get it,” he grits out. “I get what you're saying. You think we shouldn't find out what's really going on and just let him walk free without explaining what the hell is going on in this town.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“If he's alive, that means Will didn't kill him. It pulls apart his entire confession.”

“I know.”

He waits, but she doesn't continue.

“You really don't think he's there, do you?” he asks.

“I don't. And I don't want you to get hurt by what you don't find. You scare me, Christopher. Every damn day. I worry about you all the time. Worry that there's something I’ve missed, like I did with Rodney—that you’re hurting and you won’t talk about it. Worry that you’ll bury yourself again and nothin’ will drag you out this time.” A break. “I'm selfish. I don't want to lose something else.”

Christopher swallows drily. He traces one of the cracks in the wall. “I’m not a child, Laura. I can handle myself.”

He hears her turn away. “I know, kid.”

They do not speak again. When he wakes, the steel non-storm from yesterday is still unfurled over the city. Laura’s already dressed and sitting by the window, staring out at the endless sea of mustard-colored parking spots.

“We should get going,” she says, and does not turn around.

Christopher pulls on yesterday’s clothes, layered in a neat pile on the mottled couch. His mouth tastes sour. His head pounds dully. Today, he thinks. Today, maybe, he’ll see him again.

Chapter Text

The landscape shifts dramatically. Hills get steeper, and the curves lost in Indiana are found in every swoop of the Pennsylvania roads. Christopher marvels at the hunchbacks and concaves of the valleys and ridges and frosted slopes. Fog mists the hollows of early morning. They pass small mining towns tucked into the creases of hills and drive through the Appalachian foothills. He imagines Gabryle and he might gasp if he saw these wonderful things, pressing his cheek and palms to the window. Christopher desperately wants to hold him—to feel Mariana’s hand entwined in his own. They stop at a gas station built on the side of a slope—not far from State College—and he sits on the curb and calls them. Mariana is happy to hear him; Gabryle is ecstatic. He begs to talk to Laura, so Christopher hands his phone over and tries not to eavesdrop. It loosens the vice of discomfort that he trapped them in last night, if only by a margin.

New Jersey comes and goes. Christopher doesn’t register much of the industrial sprawl or overpasses; the graffiti and scrapyards and billboards stacked atop one another in a heady, fluorescent jumble. He falls asleep and dreams—of course—of Jonah, and of a memory: Jonah saddling their mom's horse, helping her climb atop Cricket. Sally ruffling his curls and Christopher latching onto his side like a barnacle. People commented on that, sometimes. How he was too attached. How he needed friends his own age.

I wanna ride, too, Christopher said.

You can ride with me.

I wanna ride by myself.

You can't yet, Chris.

Why?

‘Cause you're too small. You'd fly right off by yourself.

He wakes as they're erupting from Lincoln Tunnel into New York City—another universe he knows from movies alone. Stone buildings are cramped shoulder to shoulder. Fire escapes extend like rusted ribs. Noise assaults him from every direction and from everything in their radius, inanimate or not. His ears aren't enough to contain the clash of horns and screech of tires and volume-less chatter. Golden-hour light crescendos over the heavy traffic of 5: 48 P.M. and the people swarming the streets, fit together without rhyme or rhythm and bound for home.

It takes Laura a while to get her bearings in the new environment, but once she does, she heads south along the Henry Hudson Park and exits by 96th Street. They cruise a few blocks north, then east toward Morningside Heights.

113th is a narrower, quieter street. Students in sweatshirts and backpacks from Columbia University duck in and out of the red-and-brown brick shadows of pre-war structures. The roads are tight, nearly as much as his nerves. Splintered sunset is cut out of the London plane trees flagging overhead, standing sentinel along the sidewalk. The low thrum of Amsterdam traffic is discernable, even in the pocketed lane. Laura double-parks, turning her hazards on as people honk at them from behind.

“This is why I never moved to the city,” she grouses.

Christopher unfolds the napkin in his lap as the car shudders impatiently. He reads the address for the hundredth time in an hour and looks out of the window, searching. He spots it immediately, the innocuous sign on the trim front lawn demanding his attention despite its simplicity—a white board splayed with looping blue text and a stylized cross.

“There,” he says, and Laura kills the engine, and they are thrust into the black abyss.

Chapter Text

St. Gabriel’s Church on West 113th Street is a small, slightly crumbling Gothic Revival-style feat of architecture. Sister Adriel knows its weather-stained stone walls and an ivy-throttled bell tower better than she does her childhood home. She is no stranger to the stained glass windows, of which each divot and faded shade has imprinted itself on her soul.

So far this evening’s vespers, Adriel has woven through the pews. They're simple, worn, and darkened from years of worship—inviting, though their cushions are in need of repair. She has lit the fires at the side altar, where the holders are arranged in near rows. There's a candle for hope, a candle for prayer, a candle for a soul being remembered—so on and so forth. Her hands were steady as she moved from one to the next and waited for the flames to lick at her fingers, dangerous only if she dared to fear them. She then adjusted the items on the altar for the evening liturgy, ensuring that the chalice and patens were centered and clean. She placed the lovely Bible of Father Nicholas open on its stand, smoothing her hand over its white cover and lacy gold lettering. She checked the altar cloth, making sure it was properly aligned. It’s important to maintain the dignity of a sacred space, and she believes there is no better way to convey such devotion than through detail.

Adriel prepares, now, a small censor with incense, carefully measuring out the granules and lighting them with a match. As the smoke begins to curl and dissipate, she takes up the censor and swings it back and forth in languid arcs—the curl of a cat’s back.

She catches, from the corner of her eye, the robes of one of her sisters bustling down the center aisle, black fabric fuming around her like smoke. Adriel hums a song she heard on the radio this morning and continues her swinging, waiting patiently for her sister to reach her. She prefers to take these hours slowly, to reflect on her day and the days that fathered it.

It does not take long for Sister Hannah to puff into the crossing, the apples of her cheeks red and peaked—not an unusual look for her; she's the newest addition to their convent, the youngest at 18. Her youth and vivacity warms Adriel whenever she is witness to it.

“In a rush, Sister?” Adriel asks pleasantly.

“A little,” Sister Hannah huffs. “I’m sorry—I shouldn’t be disturbing you.”

“It's alright, Sister Hannah. I want to be bothered. What's brought you over here?”

“There are visitors in the vestibule—one of them says his name is Christopher…” She purses her lips, thinking. “Christopher Henris? And he says he's looking for his brother. I don't really know how to go about helping him… The things he was telling me about… They were a little confusing. I want to help, I just… Need a bit of help myself.” She smiles sheepishly.

Adriel lowers the censor.

“His brother… What's his name?”

“Jonah, I think he said. Jonah Henris.”

Chapter Text

If Christopher Henris had not said he was looking for Jonah Henris specifically—that he was looking for Nathan Stone—she would have been doubtful of their brotherhood. He's tall like Jonah, and there are a few similarities in the structure of their noses—perhaps the tilt of their eyes—but beyond that, there’s no resemblance between the two. Christopher’s hair is as black as her robes, his eyes clear and blue as spring water. Jonah's curls called attention to itself with their fire, and his eyes were dusky and lightless. Christopher is a healthy, strong, strapping young man, and unfortunately, she did not know Jonah at a time in his life where he, too, glowed. It cinches her heart, always. It cuts an artery. It shaves fibrous tissue. She bleeds with the hope in Christopher’s eyes. She knows she will wound him.

Adriel leads him and Laura Tate (the blonde woman she had wrongly assumed to be his mother) to the church basement, where they have rooms for those seeking shelter. She feels she is led by Jonah himself as her feet slip soundlessly across the carpet. His knuckles scrape the wall, tapping a beat she knows by heart. He smiles at her over his shoulder.

At the very end of the hall is where he stayed. She nursed him back to health there, enclosed in the small borders of 1997. She fed him broth from a spoon as if he were a baby bird, gave him warm clothes and wrapped him in blankets and read to him from the Bible as he shivered through the night, clinging stubbornly to life. Jonah barely spoke that first week. He was ghostly thin, an amalgamation of paper-thin flesh that painfully stuck to bone. He was violently ill, plagued by oral thrush and dry, nagging coughs. He was half-feral with distrust in his moments of consciousness, backing away from her like a cornered animal and clutching his cross necklace so tightly she could see the blue rivers of veins through his translucent skin.

Adriel was raised in Appalachia. She spent her childhood scaling trees and picking pine needles from her hair, tracking creatures with her father. She saw, once, a wolf smudged in the treeline through his binoculars. She did not fear wild animals, even those that could hurt her. They were God’s creatures all the same. Oftentimes they were fine as were—to be feral was part of the natural order as much as civility—but sometimes they could be tamed. Sometimes dogs bite not from aggression, but fear.

What can be learned can be unlearned. What was once struck can be taught to lean into a hand. What was shattered can be reforged.

She came to Jonah softly as winter shed its white pallor for the blossoming of spring. She left food outside his door and snuck into his room at night to read. He’d turn to the wall but would not kick her out. She learned to leave the door open so the dark of the hallway slithered in because he refused to be alone with her. She learned that he hated being touched.

In May, he came out of the basement and offered, quietly, to help her around the church. Adriel agreed. She gave him menial jobs because he was so frail—work she could help with. Together they would wipe down the pews, sweep the floors, and dust the altar. He was good with his hands. He knew how to fix things, like the organ. He knew how to play it a little. He knew how to make music. The first time he sang for her—raspy but full of control and pale power—she’d nearly cried. She closed her eyes and his hymn cleansed her, finding the divots of her being and making her pure. She loved it when he sang. When she closes her eyes, it’s his voice she hears.

You sound beautiful, she said.

I used to sound better, he demurred.

I don’t think that’s possible. You have the voice of an angel.

They spent the summer in each other’s company. Adriel was reminded of why she took her monastic vows every time his smile spread an inch wider and every time he let a laugh slip. He’d initially told her his name was Nathan Stone, but as summer turned red and gold with autumn and his cough became bloody, he told her his real name was Jonah Henris, and that he was from a little town in the Midwest with nothing in it but everything he loved. He had a father he looked up to more than anyone in the world, and a mother whose voice he was starting to forget, and a little brother, the thought of whom made him want to cry. He had someone at home and he missed the hoot of the barn owls at night and the sunlight streaming through his window in the morning. He told her he was grateful for everything she did for him—for a kindness he could never repay.

For Christmas, she bought him a new guitar. Jonah played it in the back of the church, and once the song was over, he wept. She whispered soothingly to him as his tears soaked her veil, brushing his soft hair with the palm of her hand. It was the first time he allowed her to touch him.

There's a long, Biblical tradition of suffering not only coexisting with faith, but deepening it. Jesus’s crucifixion was not merely physical agony, but existential. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Jonah admitted to Adriel that he believed himself to be unclean, sinful, and shameful, and that for a time he had hated God and loved God so deeply he could not look Him in the eye for his shame. He believed himself evil for screaming and weeping and cursing and praying through clenched teeth. She told him that in doing so, he has followed the traditions of the psalmists, of Jeremiah, of Christ himself. God did not undo the crucifixion—He transformed it.

These voices never pretended the pain didn't hurt. Instead, they laid it bare before the Lord. She told him it was not a sin that he or they had done so—that you can't love a God you don't speak honestly to. It is merely the beginning of the relationship.

She prayed with Jonah at his bedside while he wasted away in the basement, too weak to talk or eat or sing. For the first time in her life, she tried to bargain with God. If I do this, will You make him better? If I do that, will You let him live? If I am good, will You let him see the sun rise one last time?

Adriel knew better than to make such demands; it was cruel to deny Jonah his time with the Lord. He died of AIDS on October 8, 1998, at 25 years old, wrapped in a quilt he’d helped her patch together. She fought tooth and nail to make sure he was buried properly in the churchyard, raising the money for it herself and marking the spot with a small iron cross.

She tells everything to Christopher, baring the naked truth as it is. When finished, Adriel takes from under the bed a shoebox of his brother's possessions—more than enough room for all the things he owned. She turns to Christopher, who's gripping Laura’s hand like it will crumble to ash. She hands it to him and says she would not be the person she is today if she had not met Jonah Henris.

Chapter Text

Inside the shoebox is Jonah’s cross necklace and four letters. The first is addressed to Rodney Henris, the second to Sally Henris, the third to Christopher Henris, and the fourth to Luanne Calloway. Christopher sits with Laura on the bed and tries to open it, but his hands are shaking too bad. Laura does it for him, tearing the seal gently with her thumbnail and divests it of its innards. She hands it back somberly. They are alone with the incoming night; Adriel has left them to read the letters alone.

Christopher unfolds the papers like he unfolded the napkin. He drinks its creases and the messy swoop of his brother's handwriting. He looks at Laura. She nods.

He starts to read.

Dear Christopher,

If you're reading this, then I've probably passed on by now. That's a bit crazy, isn't it? I never imagined I'd die this way, though I've thought about death often throughout my life. I hope you've never thought about that. Dying. I hope it's never crossed your mind in any way over these past years. I know that's an impossible ask, but I hope for it, anyway.

There are so many things I want to say to you, both in this letter and in person. I can write however much I want on these pages—I could write an entire novel—but I already owe you a long story and I don't want to bore you with extra fluff. The most important thing I have to say, I’ll say now: I’m sorry. With every atom in my being, Christopher, I'm sorry. I can never earn back your forgiveness for leaving the way I did, and telling you the truth now is not an attempt to do so. It's the least of what you deserve. The second most important thing I have to say is that I love you—I love you absolutely, and there isn't a day that goes by where I don't think of you. You're my greatest regret.

I don't know how to go on from here. I don't know where to start. My memories are so hard to reimagine some days, but on others they're clearer than a cloudless night. When I think back, nothing ever seems to make sense but my childhood. The things I best remember are our rides with Mom and drives with Dad, and the wind in my face when I rolled the windows down, and how he used to blast his music so loud I swore he was gonna start an earthquake. He played so many songs for us from so many bands (and I liked them all), but I think my favorite was—

Chapter Text

The Number of the Beast.

“Can you turn it up?” Jonah crowed from the backseat. He thumped his legs against the cushions of Rodney's new F-150 and glassed the flatlands through the window. He was young enough that the rolling rows of green and gold were fascinating to watch unravel, not boring.

“Up?” Rodney asked, amused. He had one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the lip of his rolled-down window, the wind gusting his black hair. “I think we'll get a noise complaint if I turn it any higher.”

“I wan’ it higher, Daddy,” Christopher piped. He was tiny in his car seat, copying everything Jonah said and did.

“Yeah,” Jonah insisted. “Chris wants it higher, too.”

“Nice try,” Rodney denied. “But I'm not giving you two hearing damage just yet. You can do that when you're older.”

Jonah didn't try to argue. He said, “Okay,” and continued to thump his legs. He waited for the trees to bushel in the distance and the road to crumble into gravel and for the grass to turn turbulent in its vibrancy.

They arrived at the pond in the late afternoon. Rodney carried Christopher from the pickup and Jonah ran ahead to the embankment, the silty ground cushioning the pads of his bare feet as he tore off his shoes—then his socks—and rolled up his pant legs and waded into the shallow. The upper-half of his body baked in the yolky sun, chastened by a coolness that veined from the blue waters. Rodney deposited Christopher next to Jonah and watched from the bank until he was eventually dragged into their splashing. Christopher shrieked when he was swept into the air, sticking his tongue out as Jonah tried climbing their dad to reach him from below. Rodney laughed at his attempts and did not complain at the way his jeans and shirt were drenched, though he did force them to dry off before they got back in his F-150.

So they walked the perimeter of the pond and dried off, observing a hidden inlet of tamed wilderness. Rodney held tiny Christopher by his tiny hand, and to Jonah he crouched and pointed out the pearls of nature his own dad had shown him in his childhood: a woodpecker, a snake, the rivered flesh of mockernut hickory. Jonah wondered what else there was to explore in the land—what other wonders were ripe for discovery in the world as a whole. He wanted their juice to run sweet down his chin. He wanted to climb every rock and dive the depths of every ocean. He wanted his father to point at them all.

Chapter Text

There were many things Jonah loved. If prompted, he could name several off the top of his head. His little brother was one of them. Christopher was a marvel to him. Though Jonah himself was young, there was a sad, funny feeling in him whenever his brother outgrew a shoe size or learned a new word. Jonah wanted to tell him to slow down—don’t catch up to me so fast—but Christopher wouldn't have listened, anyway. He was only interested in being as big as Jonah, and whenever asked his age, he said he was a year older than he actually was. Four became five, five became six, six became seven.

Will Thatcher was one of the things Jonah loved as well. He was an oddity on the list because—unlike everything else—he wasn’t equally loved by Jonah’s parents. Sally liked him, but Rodney was hard on Will whenever he came over to play—polite but sharp in the manner he was with Wayne Thatcher, Will’s father. There was nothing he hated more than Jonah going to the Thatchers’ place. This was another thing Jonah loved, though: visiting the Thatchers. Their house itself was a pearl of nature, construed most unnaturally in the shade of weeping willows—three stories tall, with alabaster-white columns flanking the wraparound porch and black shutters framing the wide, elegiac portals of each window. The ivy creeping along its sides was wild in a curated way, not a leaf out of place. Jonah could easily believe they'd been manicured to a particular perfection because the Thatchers had a gardener whose job it was to make their yard pretty, along with a butler, a chef, and two maids. These five individuals kept the entire estate from falling out of orbit, sewing up the seams on the rare occasion that they ripped—Wayne was very strict about how his house was run, so it wasn't often. Simply setting foot on the road leading up to the estate was like stepping into a time and place Jonah did not know how to exist in.

They weren't the only wealthy people in town—there were the Schmidts and the Cooks and the Bells, too; the Marshalls and the Youngs and the Wilsons—but the Thatchers were certainly the wealthiest, the head of an ecosystem detached from the rest of Coldwater. They owned the town—historically, economically, socially—and they lived the farthest out, in a bubble of their own design.

Jonah wasn't exactly sure how his friendship with Will began, or how it wound up cording them so tightly together. They really had nothing in common. The Henris's house was perhaps a quarter the size of the Thatcher’s, if he was being generous. Jonah was quiet and did his utmost not break a single rule, while Will was out-spoken and mischievous. Jonah liked reading and Will liked tumbling around with footballs. He played every sport under the sun—baseball, basketball, track—and he was good at them all. He was prosaic at talking and had also been born with the innate ability to sparkle his teeth whenever he grinned, which in turn had the unfortunate effect of causing everyone within a ten-foot radius to fall at his feet in supplication. Will was perfect at everything, the favorite of Wayne's blonde, blue-eyed offspring. Jonah, in the meantime, was Jonah. There wasn't anything special about him—nothing in the least to dazzle Will and justify his apparent obsession with him. But he made it clear that he thought Jonah was indefinitely interesting, and out of all his friends (of which there were many), Jonah was the one he sought first in everything—the one he harpooned into hanging out and his stupid schemes. Will didn't care if Rodney didn't like him. It wouldn't stop him from coming over.

They played most often at the farm. Will preferred it because it wasn't “as boring as my house.” Jonah largely disagreed with this sentiment.

“You don't get it ‘cause you don't have to spend every single day there,” Will said staunchly when this was revealed, latched onto the ladder leading to the hayloft. He scaled it like a monkey, 12-year-old limbs propelling him lithely upward. Jonah followed. “There's actually nothing to do.”

“There's lots to do,” Jonah protested.

“Like what?” He hopped onto the platform and flounced carelessly onto a pile of hay. Jonah flopped down next to him. “Read my dad's encyclopedias?”

“C’mon, you just gotta have a bit of imagination. Being super rich and having no imagination is a really bad combo.”

“Your mom.”

Jonah kicked him.

Wayne and Edith Thatcher wrinkled their noses at the simplicity with which the Henrises lived, but Will was enraptured by it. He dragged Jonah all over the farm, scavenging in undiscovered furrows and constructing twig-mud houses for the bullfrogs he collected by the east creek. He was especially fond of Cricket and Bandit, and Sally was more than happy to let him ride them with Jonah. It was another notch on the floor-length tally of Will's talents. His parents owned a property in upstate New York where they kept a few steeds of their own for dressage and something that sounded a lot like dancing, but instead of the people dancing it was the horses. The summer months his family spent at that property meant he could command feckless Bandit with practiced grace. They kept a tally of their pasture races, and whoever got best out of five had to buy a treat for the other. Jonah always got either toasted ravioli or beer-battered fries. Will's incorrigible sweet tooth compelled him to always get either a malt or a milkshake.

There were two things Jonah could do better than Will, and it was these he loved as he did his brother and best friend: being godly and making music.

Jonah's adoration of God was incomprehensible, even to himself—he didn't have the words to explain the depth of it. He did his best each day to please God—to be as perfect as he could be. He never complained to his parents about chores, he challenged himself to be kind to the unkind, and his favorite book to read was the Bible, a far more interesting piece of literature than Will gave it credit for.

Put simply, God was his greatest source of comfort. When kids made fun of him at school, or when everything seemed to go wrong in a single day, he would pray to God and the ache would ebb to a gentle throb—still there, but bearable. Not end-of-the-world painful. It couldn't be when he knew that the Lord was with him, listening. The fleeting pains he endured on earth were nothing in comparison to the light of God's kingdom, where peace rang eternal. It was easy for him to believe when the hurt was so small. Child-sized.

Jonah was often complimented on his musical capabilities. People marveled at the way his fingers flew across a fret board and how pure his voice was when he sang in the choir at church. Jonah, flustered, would stumble over his words when he credited God for his talent, but he meant it sincerely. He knew he was blessed, and he believed he had been blessed for a reason—for his father.

The musty, half-light hours of twilight were when Jonah would creep downstairs and stand outside the basement door. If he saw anemic light pulsing from underneath, he would push it open and tread down lightly in his pajamas. The footsteps of a mouse. The cadence of a feather. He would walk into Rodney sitting on a stool at his workbench. Among the array of rusted screwdrivers and miniature handsaws and wood blocks was a bottle of amber liquid, insidious under the bulb flush. It went like this, most nights: Rodney would lift his eyebrows when he saw him. He would cap the bottle. He'd push it to the side like that would make it disappear.

“What are you doing up?” he'd ask.

“I can't sleep,” Jonah would answer. He never said why. It was because he knew his dad would be down here, and he couldn't find rest if Rodney wasn't going to, either.

“Same boat.” He'd hold out his arm. “C’mere.”

He would. Rodney would wrap the extended arm around Jonah's shoulders and hold him. If he laid his cheek atop Jonah's head or kissed his hair, that meant he was tipsier than usual—that the nightmare had been worse. Rodney said the same thing every time Jonah told him he shouldn't drink: I just need it to sleep. His dad had a number of peculiarities, like how he startled at loud noises and sat with his back to the wall and only bought the baby firecrackers for Fourth of July celebrations in the backyard. This was one of them.

“Play for me, son?” Rodney would ask.

He would. Jonah would take his acoustic from the room adjacent and settle on a stool across from him and lay the guitar on his lap. He didn't sing. He strummed the tunes of songs he knew his dad liked and glanced at him periodically, satisfied with the way he rested his elbow on the workbench and closed his eyes. It meant he'd performed his duty well.

Rodney asked the same thing every time Jonah finished playing: What would I do without you?

Chapter Text

13 was a weird age to be, mostly because everyone seemed to be growing up much faster than Jonah was. He could tell from his hangout with Will, Tanner Schmidt, Matthew Cook, and Kyle Bell at Coldwater Lake in their final days of summer that this school year was going to be different.

Everyone had girlfriends. Including Will.

Her name was Marissa Sanders. She had strawberry-blonde hair poofed around a heart-shaped face and riveting green eyes. She laughed very loudly and smelled like Victoria’s Secret Eau De Parfum. Everyone (before they started dating each other, sans Will) agreed that she was the “hottest” girl in their class. When asked his opinion on this subject at the start of the summer, Jonah obfuscated into silence. They stared at him and he stared back, the lake water whispering at him from below the dock. He didn’t have any opinion on the girls at school when it came to their appearances. He thought some of them were pretty, but it felt wrong to rank them. It didn’t seem like something his mom would approve of.

“Uh…” He flicked a pebble into the water. “No?”

Tanner, Matthew, and Kyle looked at him like he’d crash-landed from Mars.

“Then who do you think’s the hottest?” Tanner asked, eyes narrowed in suspicion. He was somewhat of a heavy-set boy; he liked sweets even more than Will and his parents had the money to feed him as many as he wanted.

Jonah pursed his lips. “None, I guess.”

Tanner, Matthew, and Kyle looked at him like he’d crash-landed from Pluto. Later on, when the water’s face rippled tangerine-pink and it was just him and Will at the lake, Will skipped a stone with pinpoint accuracy and said, “You could’ve just said yes.”

Jonah frowned at him. “Why?”

“Well…” Will shrugged. “You know.”

“No, I don’t know.”

“Because they’re gonna think you’re weird.” Will spun back to him theatrically. “I mean, I don’t think it’s weird that you don’t think any of the girls are hot— ”

“I didn’t say that— ”

“ —But they’re gonna think it’s weird.”

“I’m not gonna say yes if I don’t agree,” Jonah said stubbornly.

“A little lying here and there never hurt anyone.”

“I don’t want to lie.”

Will pulled a face. Then he smiled slyly, backed to the water’s edge, and splashed him. Jonah squeezed his eyes shut and shot to his feet so he could do the same to Will, resulting in a wrestling match and naval battle that would've been epic if they had ships. They flew across the roads back to the Thatcher estate—the Meridian, it was called—on their bikes, dripping dark circles of water on the pavement, hollering and whooping, racing each other in the dusk as sunlight nipped at their heels. Edith was horrified when they stumbled into the house like wet cats. She ranted about the pollution rate increase in the last three years and wrapped them in towels monogrammed with a cursive M , and as they lay on the floor in Will’s room—fiddling with his model airplanes—Jonah told him the truth about what he thought of ranking girls by hotness.

“Jo, Jo, Jo,” Will sighed exaggeratedly, dusting off the wing of a polished P-51 Mustang with a small, square cloth. “You've got this all wrong. It's not about meaning it. It's about, like, participating.” He rolled onto his back. “You know.”

“Stop saying ‘you know.’”

“Why?”

“‘Cause it's making me feel dumb for not knowing.”

“Okay, well… It's just what you do. Not what you think.”

Jonah picked at a loose thread in the blue carpet. “But what if I don't want to do it?”

Will shrugged, loose and careless. “Then don't, I guess.”

Jonah didn’t respond. He fiddled with the miniature tail of a bomber, adjusting it a fraction of an inch. He didn’t know how to explain to Will that he didn’t really care what the others thought, not the way Will seemed to. It was like some internal lever that hadn’t been switched on in him yet. He wanted to keep it off.

After a minute, Will said, more quietly, “It’s just easier when you go along with it, Jo.”

Jonah looked up. Will was staring out the ceiling. The crickets were starting to scream and the streetlamps were blinking awake, one by one.

“Maybe I don’t want it to be easy,” Jonah said.

Will’s mouth tugged sideways. “Tryhard.”

Jonah smiled, too. “That’s why my grades are better than yours.”

“I have one B.”

“And I have zero.”

“Grades don't even matter in heaven.”

“How do you know you're going there?” Jonah asked with a grin. It was quick to flag as Will’s wisdom took on new meaning and possibility. “You aren't like that around me… Are you, Will?”

“Huh?”

“You aren't just going along with me, right?”

Will rose to his elbows. “What? Of course not.”

Jonah picked at the nail of his pointer finger. It was jagged as a mountain top; he had a bad habit of chewing on them. The tip of the finger itself was rock-hard and calloused.

Will jabbed him in the side with a socked foot. Jonah reeled and crawled away.

“Hey!”

“I'm offended you would think that,” Will pouted, sounding truly offended. “You're the only person that doesn't apply to.”

“Okay, okay… Just keep your feet away from me…”

“Are we even friends anymore?”

“Not after that toe touch.”

Will scrunched his nose, which had already taken on an aristocratic sweep—unlike Jonah's, humped and ugly at the bridge. Jonah lay back beside him, the Mustang clutched in one of Will’s hands. They stared up at the ceiling, where a few glow-in-the-dark stars pulsed green, like an extraterrestrial heart. Algae in the blanketed blue of the ocean. Will kept them up because his dad thought they were childish.

“You're way cooler than any of them,” Will said. “Anyone. In this whole town.”

“I think you're the only person who thinks that.”

“My opinion’s the only one that matters.”

“What about mine?”

“Depends on the opinion.”

“I was gonna say I think the same thing about you.”

“Then… Yeah.” Will cocked his head closer to Jonah. “Our opinions are the only ones that matter. Just you ‘n me.” He sighed happily. “I wish we were brothers.”

“Me too.”

“Who says we can't be?” Will rolled onto his side to face Jonah. “Let's spit in each other's hands and swear on it. Brothers for life.”

Jonah recoiled. “Ew. I don't wanna touch your spit.”

They ended up sneaking into the giant Thatcher kitchen and stealing a peeling knife from one of the drawers and tumbling outside in the dark. Crickets chirped as they knelt by the rose bushes in the garden, barefoot and breathless. Will held the peeling knife over his thumb, pouting.

“Are you sure you don't just wanna spit?” he asked weakly.

“Positive.”

He closed his eyes as he sliced open the appendage. When it was his own turn, Jonah watched—entranced—as his flesh parted to bead blood along the rupture. He swiped the knife quickly, but it still hurt. Crickets sang as they pressed their hands together, letting the red trickle over their palms and mingle and bind. Will smiled.

“Brothers,” he said.

Jonah didn't know what to think about Will and Marissa being together in 8th grade. He didn’t like Marissa very much, and he had a feeling she didn’t like him much, either. But Will seemed to like her, and if Will liked her then Jonah was perfectly fine with her sitting next to them at lunch, and Will turning around to talk to her in class instead of him, and Will allocating more and more of their hangout time for “dates.”

Jonah wasn’t upset by it (though he didn’t think it was a good idea to have a girlfriend when you weren’t even in high school yet). He wasn’t jealous. Will made sure to spend a second with Jonah for every second he spent with Marissa. But he did feel a little lonely, regardless. He once watched them from across the hallway—giggling into one another’s orbits—and was hit by that sad, funny feeling he got sometimes when he looked at Christopher. The blondes of their hair were complimentary. The green of her eyes looked like stars on Will’s ceiling.

“Are you okay?”

It was a voice from the left. A man. He was tall—a little willowy, with a long face to match his long limbs. On his long, narrow nose was perched a pair of rectangular glasses, an oil-stained brown a similar shade to his hair. He was smiling.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you—I just wanted to make sure you were alright. You looked a little sad over here.”

“…Yeah. I’m okay.” He tilted his head, studying him. “Are you a new teacher?”

“Aw… So what I’m getting from this conversation is that I don’t pass for one of the students.”

Jonah returned his smile.

“No, no, you’re right.” The smile widened. “I’m the replacement for the old music teacher. Wanted to get a look around before classes started. Talk to a couple people, maybe.”

“Oh. Well…” Jonah glanced at the ground, suddenly shy. It’s how he got with every new person he met. “I’m Jonah.”

The man held out a hand to shake. Tentatively, he took it.

“Mr. Cotton.”

Chapter Text

Jonah took an immediate liking to Mr. Cotton. He was funny and lenient and nothing like Coldwater Public School’s witch of an English teacher, Mrs. Moran. The best thing about him, though, was that he played the guitar and the bass. He was the first music teacher Jonah had who didn’t just play piano.

When Jonah told him he also played guitar and that he enjoyed singing, Mr. Cotton lit up, bright and white and shiny from the reflection of his glasses. “Do you?”

Jonah nodded. After the bell heralded the end of the day, Mr. Cotton took out his acoustic and sat Jonah on the piano bench so he could listen to him play. Jonah decided to do “Little Wing” by Jimi Hendrix, hoping to impress him with his technique. Mr. Cotton’s brows inched further and further up his forehead as the song went on.

“Wow,” he said at the end. “That’s better than I was expecting.”

At the same time the next day, he brought his electric guitar and amp from home—a Gibson Les Paul Custom with a glossy, bloody finish, and a Marshall JCM800—and set it up in the music room. Jonah buzzed from the piano bench as he watched its construction; he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so excited.

Mr. Cotton didn’t say much as he tuned the Les Paul, but he noticed the buzzing and gave a half-smile Jonah was rapidly starting to relish.

“You ever played through a tube amp before?” he asked.

 Jonah shook his head. “No, sir.”

 “Well…” He straightened—hefting the guitar into position—and struck a single, open E, letting the note ring. “You’re in for a treat.”

The sound that poured out of the Marshall was thick and alive, humming in the floors and the hollows of Jonah’s bones, peeling back his eyelids. It growled, warm and raw, even before Mr. Cotton so much as touched the gain. His mouth fell open, just a sliver.

“Here,” he said, handing it over with a reverence that made Jonah hold his breath. Mr. Cotton guided his hand along the fretboard, positioning it correctly. The guitar was heavier than he expected, but balanced, like it belonged in his arms. It made his fingers look even smaller than they were on his acoustic despite being similar in size.

“Try ‘Little Wing’ again,” Mr. Cotton said, stepping back with folded arms and a glint in his eye.

Jonah took a second to breathe, then began to play. The Les Paul responded to him like it could read his thoughts. The bends came smoother the longer he went, the chords trembling richer with each pluck. Its purr was pure and gritty—it tumbled into his tissue and eviscerated him. Finger squeaks and missed mutes were exposed through the amp, as if intentionally keeping him honest. By the end, Jonah had all but forgotten where he was. The final notes faded into the walls, and Mr. Cotton exhaled.

“You’ve got something, Jonah,” he said. “You really do. You ever thought about performing?”

Jonah looked up reluctantly from the Les Paul. He wanted to burn it into his retinas. “Like… on a stage?”

Mr. Cotton nodded.

“I have in church a couple times for Christmas and stuff.”

“What about at school?”

“No, sir.”

“That’s a shame,” Mr. Cotton seemed genuinely miffed. “Hm… I’m sure you know about the winter showcase in December. Not many kids sign up for solos, apparently.” His mouth quirked. “You could change that.”

“I don't have a guitar, though… An electric one, I mean.”

“Not a problem. You can use mine.”

Jonah’s heart thudded. The idea of playing in front of the whole school made his stomach twist, but the image of that bloody Les Paul under the stage lights, of his music echoing in a big room, even if it was just the stinky auditorium that had smelled like moldy cheese ever since Tommy Hart lost his baloney sandwich there—that felt right.

“I’ll think about it,” he said, hoping he wasn't smiling too much.

Mr. Cotton grinned. “You should. A talent like yours needs witnesses. And you don't have to call me sir. Rick is fine.”

“Rick?”

Mr. Cotton nodded. “Mhm. That's what my friends call me.”

“Oh.” Did Mr. Cotton really think of him as a friend? Jonah hoped so. He’d never been that interested in making new friends—none of the other boys seemed worth the effort, and he was pretty sure there was no one else in the world who could understand him like Will did—but Mr. Cotton would definitely be a cool friend if he were to have another. He was really nice, too. Nicer than the rest of the teachers and kids in his class.

“You’re pretty special, Jonah,” Mr. Cotton went on. “You remind me of myself when I was younger.”

“Really?”

A nod. “Not to say I was that talented,” he quickly corrected. “You’re a lot better than I was at your age.”

Jonah looked down, abashed.

Mr. Cotton watched him for a moment. “Unless you don't want to be friends…” he said, and shrugged a bit jokingly.

“Oh, no, I would,” Jonah protested. “I would! Like to be friends— ” The Les Paul nearly slid from his lap. He floundered to catch it. “If that's okay.”

“Great.” Mr. Cotton winked. “It can be our little secret.”

He clapped Jonah on the shoulder before he took the Les Paul back. His touch lingered. Jonah did not notice.

Chapter Text

That semester might have been the last unalloyed time in his life, the one he would go on to remember faultlessly. Jonah spent the weeks with his attention divided between Will and Mr. Cotton and his parents and his brother, and in November, he attended two Thanksgivings: one with his family and one with the Thatchers. He helped his mom pick the turkey—a strenuous process she took with extreme care—and was her assistant as it was seasoned and stuffed and stashed in the oven to roast. He cut the bean ends for the green bean casserole; stirred the lumpy, buttery mashed potatoes; and popped the lid for the cranberry sauce can. He rolled out the dough for a pumpkin pie crust and an apple pie crust—each of which were served with Cool Whip—and showed Christopher how to set the table. His brother, a newly minted seven-year-old, would purposefully put the plates upside down so Jonah would fake annoyance and chase him around the house. He pretended not to see Christopher was crawling behind the TV stand, hiding.

Rodney eventually scooped Christopher off the floor and plopped him in his seat—cushioned because he was so short. Jonah pulled out the chair for his mom before doing so for himself. He closed his eyes as his dad said the blessing.

“Lord, we thank You for the food before us and the hands that made it. For the roof over our heads, even when it leaks, and the heat in the oven, even when the firewood’s low. Thank You for the work You gave us this year, and the strength to get through the days when it felt like too much. Thank You for family, and for the time we get to sit amongst each other as we do now. Help us to hold tight to one another, even when times get hard. Bless this meal, and bless everyone at this table. Amen.”

The words invoked in Jonah a warmth—a deep love stoked by God for his father and mother and brother. There was also an incredible sadness in him for those in this world who couldn’t experience the same for themselves, and he prayed for them that night in the room he shared with Christopher. He then crawled into bed with his brother, watching the rise and fall of his chest—fast as a hare’s and slowing with the tread of years.

Jonah did this often. It induced in him a strange sense of calm, like the warmth he’d felt after the blessing. Perhaps the calm was a flicker of it, for that love never truly left him. He was never cold and aching after a bright flare. It burned eternally, just below the soused lumps of his lungs and the nooks of his joints, and he felt that if he did not have those little fires forged in all the little crevices of his body he would be human in the most mundane of ways—the way that was meat and organs strung together by biological impulse. The way that made boys rank girls by opinionated hotness.

Christopher stirred in his sleep. He cracked his eyes open and they glowed in the dark, like the stars on Will’s ceiling. He called his name sleepily in the lightlessness. Jojo.

“Hm?”

Christopher snuggled closer, burying his face in Jonah’s chest. He fell back asleep before he could answer.

Thanksgiving at the Thatchers was much different. Jonah was able to attend it this year because they held it a day after it was actually supposed to be held, on the 28th (one of the guests wouldn’t be able to fly in on the 27th, so Wayne decided to postpone a day). This guest was a mere blip in a phantasmal collection of them, their polished black cars gleaming at Jonah as he biked up to the estate. Will had lots of family out-of-town, but his parents also had lots of friends and business associates that they invited over whenever the opportunity arose.

The dining room smelled of cedar and citrus cleaner. Candles danced in silver sconces and crystal suspended high above the partiers glimmered faintly in the late-afternoon. The three tables arranged parallel to each other were extensive and set with creamy linens, gold-rimmed china, twenty types of silverware, and delicate goblets for alcoholic beverages. Jonah thought of the Thatchers' lives through the lens of a painter as he took in the spread: a tasteful arrangement of dried wheat, ivory roses, and gourds. The meal was served in three courses: duck confit, roasted pheasant, dry-aged bird, and optional turkey for the main dish; wild mushroom risotto, glazed carrots with star anise, truffle mashed potatoes, and haricots verts almondine for the sides; pear tartlets, pumpkin panna cotta, and French pastries from a boutique bakery in Chicago for dessert. Wine was poured in intervals by house staff. Only an artisan could capture the grandiose beauty of their home; it required bold, vibrant strokes. A delicate hand that knew detail.

In total, there were 50 adult guests and twelve children. The youngest of them—including Will’s little sister, Grace—sat at a separate table in a separate room and were overseen by nannies. At 13, he and Will were old enough to sit at one of the adult tables. Will led him to the seats at the far end, directly across from his parents and Clement, who looked like he wanted to be anywhere else.

Clement smirked when he saw Jonah, mouthing something at him with crossed arms. Fishface. The nickname he'd given because he thought Jonah's eyes were too far apart.

Will glared at his brother fiercely, tugging Jonah into his chair by the sleeve.

“He needs to look in a mirror,” he grumbled, and stuck his tongue out at Clement. Edith Thatcher shot daggers in Will's direction. He snickered—expecting Jonah to join in as usual—but Jonah was too busy trying not to stare at the men and women around him, their gold watches and ruby necklaces. If the Thatchers’ lives could only be viewed in the lens of an artist, then he must now be in a painting. Not one of those warm, mud-toned pastoral pieces his mother hung in the living room—with wheat fields and cows and boys with slings slung over their shoulders—but a sharp, gilded kind. A Rococo with marble skin and powdered faces and elaborate brocade jackets. The Thatchers must’ve dressed like that a couple decades ago.

Will elbowed him. “Jo,” he hissed. “You hear me?”

“What?” Jonah blinked. “Oh. Yeah. Right.” He didn’t think more time in front of a mirror would do Clement any good. It appeared to have the reverse effect on his self-esteem.

Every now and then, someone at the table would offer him a glance—cordial, but fleeting. Most addressed Will with knowing familiarity: a hand on his shoulder or a comment about how tall he was getting or praise on how much he looked like his dashing father. Jonah, on the other hand, existed in the liminal space of polite disregard. He sat back in his chair and folded a red-cloth napkin in his lap, hyperaware of his elbows as they dug into his sides and the way his voice might sound when he next had to speak. What if it cracked mid-sentence? What if he reached for the wrong utensil? What if he spilled something? He'd eaten over at the Thatchers plenty of times, but he hadn't been to a dinner of this scale yet, and not with so many people.

Will didn’t seem to notice Jonah’s discomfort. He waved down a server to refill his glass—non-alcoholic cider, Jonah was relieved to find, then embarrassed because he'd somehow forgotten that Will couldn't be legally served alcohol—and leaned close, whispering, “One hour till we can escape.” He smiled his secret smile, the one for Jonah alone.

At exactly 4 P.M., Wayne Thatcher stood before the middle table and tapped a wine glass with a spoon, its tinkle stealing the attention of the room. He was the complete opposite of Jonah's dad with his Armani suit and clean-shaven jaw, and the divide was never more stark than it was then.

“Thank you all for joining us,” he began, measured and elegant. “As always, it’s an honor to welcome so many dear friends and loved ones into our home. Thanksgiving, to me, is not only about food and tradition—it is about endurance and gratitude, the kind that persists even in years of change. We give thanks tonight not only for our fortune, but for the people who share in it with us—who help us steward it well. As the inheritor of one of the most successful private asset and landholding companies in the nation, I know firsthand how hard it is to find one’s footing and prosper. I couldn't have done it alone—I couldn't have flourished without the support of all you here, sharing in food and drink with me and my family on this glorious day of thanks. May we remain good custodians of our lives, our homes, and the responsibilities entrusted to us.”

He lifted his glass. “To the year behind us—and the one ahead.”

“To the year ahead,” the guests echoed, clinking resounding along the tables. Jonah raised his glass a second too late, but thankfully no one noticed.

Dinner resumed with a grace he wasn’t used to. Conversation bobbed just shy of laughter, remaining at a steady hum about board appointments, ski trips, fundraising galas, and debates over the new wing of an art museum he’d never heard of. There was mention of Thatcher & Co.’s Q4 projections. Someone nearby brought up Reagan. Murmured approval. Someone else brought up Clement’s future at Yale, an increasingly far-off possibility. Murmured disapproval.

Jonah took slow, small bites. He tried the pheasant, then returned to the truffle mashed potatoes. He didn’t hate it, but he sorely missed his mother’s pumpkin pie and the days when he didn’t have to track which fork was used for what. He felt like he’d been dropped into a masquerade ball,, and everyone around him knew the steps to a dance he hadn’t been taught.

“And who’s this, Will?” asked a balding, mustachioed man from across them, smiling at Jonah.

“Joseph, I believe,” said the woman next to him, dabbing her violet lips with the red-cloth napkin. “Joseph Henry.”

Jonah cleared his throat. “Jonah,” he muttered. “Jonah Henris.”

Balding Man tipped his ear toward him. “What was that, son?”

“Jonah Henris.”

They stared at him blankly.

“Where are your parents from?” Violet-Lips ventured.

“Here.”

“What work do they do?” Balding Man asked. “Banking? Real estate?” He chuckled. “Wayne never has enough buddies in real estate.”

Jonah started to sweat. He poked at one of the toasted almonds on his green beans. “My, uh… My dad plants stuff.”

“He gardens?” Violet-lips brightened. “I enjoy that in my down-time as well. Begonias, peonies… Asters . I have money trees all over the house. They really brighten up a room.”

Jonah pulled at his shirt. “I mean stuff you… Digest.”

“Pardon?”

“Stuff you eat.”

She dimmed, confused. “Squash blossoms?”

“He’s a farmer.”

Balding Man’s smile tightened as he recalibrated his response.

“Oh,” he said finally. “Salt of the earth. We need more of that these days.”

Violet-Lips hummed in agreement, but her eyes had already moved past Jonah, settling on a waiter bringing out another bottle of wine. The air in Jonah’s lungs thickened.

Will, sensing the shift, leaned forward. “They grow corn and soy mostly. And pumpkins in the fall. I’ve had the pie—It's incredible.”

There was a pause. Balding Man laughed: a quick, dry bark. “Pumpkins! Well, there you go. A proper Midwestern boy.”

A flush crawled up Jonah’s neck, burning beneath his collar.

“That’s right,” Will said, chipper and unfazed. “Jonah’s place has the best view of the hills in the whole county. I keep trying to convince him to host a bonfire.”

“A bonfire?” Clement drawled from down the table, propping his chin on his hand. “What, like a summer camp? His house does look like one, I guess.”

Will didn’t even look at him. “Don’t worry, Clement. You wouldn’t be invited. I know how your rash flares under sun exposure.”

That earned a stifled laugh from the young, pretty woman beside Clement—presumably his plus-one. His ears reddened.

“Don’t let them get to you,” Will muttered once Balding Man and Violet-Lips were lost in conversation with each other, voice low as he leaned in again. “They all think the world ends where their driveway does.”

Jonah’s discomfort had reached previously undiscovered heights, but he still managed a grin. “I bet they don’t even know where their driveway ends.”

Will laughed under his breath. “Yeah. Probably.”

He allowed himself a real smile. That day was strange and golden and out of place to him, a dream cast in the wrong colors. Jonah told Mr. Cotton about it at their Monday after-school lesson, tuning the Les Paul under his watchful eye. He was more focused on his task than he was on the things he was saying; Mr. Cotton had swiftly become one of the few people he could talk to so easily.

A thoughtful hum from where Mr. Cotton perched on a blue plastic chair. “They don’t seem like very nice people—the Thatchers.”

Jonah hesitated. “Sometimes they can be a little mean, I guess… But Will… He’s great.”

“Is he?” Mr. Cotton cocked his head, thinking. “You two must be pretty close.”

“Yeah.” Jonah smiled. “We’ve been friends a long time. We know each other better than anyone.”

Mr. Cotton’s expression flattened to concern, a bittersweet curl to his mouth. “I think it’s great you have someone like that in your life, Jonah. But a word of advice: don’t get too caught up with people who aren’t able to understand you.”

Jonah glanced at him, his fingers pausing on the frets. “What do you mean?”

Mr. Cotton took a moment before answering. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Sometimes we try to shrink ourselves to fit into someone else’s world because we love them, or because we think we have to be accepted. But it’s pretty lonely, isn’t it? When you're the only one bending?”

Jonah swallowed, throat dry. He adjusted one of the tuning pegs with more force than necessary. The guitar gave a faint, sour twang.

“It’s not Will’s fault that he can’t fully understand you,” Mr. Cotton went on gently. "Most people born into his kind of life are always gonna be a little out of touch.” He slumped. “I know this is… horrible to say about a student, but it can be damaging over time. I wouldn’t want to see you hurt.”

Jonah pressed his lips together. Furrowed his brow. However much he hated talking about Will like this, he wanted to hear more. “Have you been through that before?”

Mr. Cotton nodded, solemn. “I’ve made friends with the wrong sort quite a bit over the years. World’s chock-full of them—got lots of experience under my belt because of it. You, though…” He grabbed Jonah’s shoulder—a frequent motion. His hand slid down, cold along the line of Jonah's back. Jonah stiffened, just a fraction. He was not touchy by nature. “You’re the right sort.”

The hand was forgotten in the ensuing rush of comradery that poured over Jonah, as rich and rare as ambrosia. “I think you are, too,” he said.

He didn’t tell Will about such things, and neither did he think he really believed them. But on the night of the winter seminar, when he returned backstage after his performance to find Mr. Cotton waiting with his own secret smile, he considered the possibility of them being true. Mr. Cotton pulled him into a hug, and the trail of fingers down the rungs of Jonah’s ribs through his shirt did not escape his notice; it scalded him, and for a half-second Jonah wanted to push him away. But he did not. He was sure it was his own polluted mind conjuring bad thoughts, trying to turn one of his only friends against him. Mr. Cotton was the right sort of person, after all.

Chapter Text

15 was an even worse age to be than 13. Everyone didn't just have girlfriends—that was old news. The problem, now, was that they were constantly sucking face. Including Will.

“She just has these eyes, Jo… And these lips… And these hips…”

Jonah wrinkled his nose. They were hiking through the Meridian Lodge, admiring the fall of summer and the rise of autumn. This and spring were always the best time of year for walks in the woods. The wild’s death and rebirth were fascinating to Jonah, mirrors of each other’s beauty. Lush branches and barren. The puckering of berries in the undergrowth. The cutouts of sunlight across the earth when there were many leaves and when there were few. A constantly shifting puzzle. A study in contrasts.

Will—several paces ahead—spun around at Jonah's lack of response and walked backwards along the trail. The darkening bracken brought out the light of his hair.

“What?” he asked upon seeing Jonah’s expression.

“Nothing,” Jonah said simply.

“Whatever you're doing with your face right now is not nothing.”

Jonah's nose wrinkled further as he bustled past Will. Will watched him go—surprised—and jogged to catch up.

“Okay, what's going on with you?”

“Nothing,” he repeated. “I'm just tired of hearing about you and Marissa making out 24/7.”

“Why?” Will smiled slyly. “Are you jealous ‘cause you haven't even had your first kiss?”

“No,” Jonah said flatly. He meant it sincerely. He wasn't inclined to kiss a random girl if she wasn't the one he was going to marry someday. That was how his mom had gone about things, and Jonah was the type to learn from example. His parents were the best there was. “Do you even like Marissa besides her lips and hips?”

“Of course I do!” Will exclaimed, smile morphing into an expression of offense.

“Like what?”

“Like…” Will dithered. “Like…”

“She just has these eyes, Jo!” Jonah mocked in a high-pitched voice. “And these lips! And these hips! Actually, I think that’s all she has!”

Will shoved him. “Shut up! She’s… She’s smart. She gets me.”

Marissa had some of the worst grades in their class and once tried to bribe Jonah into doing her algebra homework with a twenty-dollar bill, but he decided not to bring that up.

“You’re definitely jealous.”

Jonah rolled his eyes. “Right. Okay. Whatever you say.”

“It's alright to admit it if it's true,” Will insisted, smile returning. “We could fix that, easy.”

“There’s nothing to fix.”

“You can say that when there aren’t a bunch of girls wetting their panties for you.”

Jonah stumbled. “What?”

Will grabbed his arm to steady him, sharpening to a smirk. “That’s right. I hear the things Marissa’s friends say…” His voice took on a pitch similar to the one Jonah’s had not even a minute earlier. He clasped his hands together. “Oh, Kimmy, I had the most unholy thoughts when I saw him at church yesterday! Oh, Tracy, I wish he'd finger me instead of that guitar!”

Jonah stared at him in horror.

“That's not even the worst to come out of their mouths,” Will continued shamelessly. “You know Brooke Evans, right? From Madison?”

“Yeah…” They’d been introduced briefly at Will’s last football game. Curly brown hair in a neon ponytail. Chestnut eyes highlighted by blue eyeshadow. Or were they green? He couldn’t remember.

“She’s got the hots for you, Jo. A lot of them.” Will grabbed Jonah’s shoulders. “She's gonna be at Marissa's birthday party tomorrow, actually. It'd be the perfect time to make a move.”

“I don't…” Jonah was at a loss. This was the first he’d heard of someone being into him instead of Will. “I don't think I've even been invited to that.”

“Why wouldn't you be?

“Well…”

“Whatever. Doesn't matter. I'll make sure you are. It's gonna be late -late. Like, 9 P.M.”

Jonah worried his lower-lip. “I don't know, Will… My parents probably won't want me to go.”

“Just sneak out.”

“You want me to die.”

“Look, Jo,” Will sighed. “I know you love your parents. I do, too. Sally’s great. Rodney… Well, he's Rodney. If they were my parents, I’d probably wanna listen to everything they say, too. But what you've gotta understand is that they've completely forgotten what it's like to be young and free and to not have a stick up their ass. We've got certain quotas we need to fill before we end up like them.”

Jonah looked at him, still uncertain.

“If she offers a kiss…” Will fantasized. “Then you'll get what I mean when I'm talkin’ about lips.”

Chapter Text

Jonah told himself that if his dad was in the basement that night, he wouldn't go to the party. If the light was on, he would go downstairs and play for him. It would be a sign from God that he shouldn't give in to Will’s persuasions.

He waited an hour before he snuck out of his room and crept down the stairs; before he tiptoed through the kitchen to the door at the very back of the house. He saw, before he even reached it, that there was nothing beneath the slab of wood but shadow.

Jonah swallowed. He crept back to his room.

What did one wear to these things? He was pretty sure this wouldn't be your average birthday party. Did that mean he had to wear above-average attire? If so, what constituted above-average? He thought of that Thanksgiving he'd spent at the Thatchers and the ironed drapes of fabric the guests had been wearing, folded artistically over the gazelles of their bodies. Stylish and sophisticated.

He dared to turn on his lamp and rifled through his entire closet. He had a few nice button-downs and belts for church, but that was about it. In the end, he wore what he did everyday to school: a plain black shirt and plain blue jeans and his plain, faded sneakers. Jonah then stood in front of his bedroom—holding his face close to his reflection—and tried to see what Brooke Evans apparently saw in him: someone attractive. Someone to be desired. He measured the distance between his eyes, an astronomical mileage that had earned him the name Fishface as a kid. Decided it was too long. He traced his hunchback nose. Decided it was too crooked. He examined his burgeoning muscle, and though he was bigger than the guys in his class—even Will—he still very clearly had the contours of a boy only just crawling out his childhood shell. He was a teenager, utterly ordinary in his adolescence—maybe even below-ordinary. He took in his untamable curls and the coloring of them, which was lovely on his mother but atrocious on himself. Definitely below-ordinary.

Jonah wasn’t upset by his lack of allure. He knew he had yet to change, and that the face he wore now would be different from the one he would wear at a more grown age. What he couldn’t fathom was why anyone would want him. It was a similar conundrum to the fact that Will seemed to like Jonah before anyone else. What did Brooke Evans see that made her prefer him over flaxen-haired, anatomically pleasant Will, with his glinting smile and unflinching confidence? He wondered if he could ask her. If she would tell him. If she was nice. If, perhaps, he had the wrong idea about her. Maybe she would not just be a random girl.

Chapter Text

He wanted to leave as soon as he was offered beer.

“You’re such a prude, Jonah,” Tanner said, rooting around in the wine cooler.

“I’m not thirsty,” he said lamely. He was sitting stiff-backed on the couch in Marissa’s zoo-sized basement with the rest of the friend group he claimed reluctant membership of. Their voices were low against Madonna’s crooning in the dark semi-private. Scarves had been thrown over the lamps. A pile of gifts were stacked on a corner-table: makeup and clothes and jewelry. He had been assaulted by hairspray as soon as the door allowing him entrance was opened. The scent was burned into his nostrils.

“You don’t drink it ‘cause you’re thirsty, Jo,” Kyle said with a laugh from his left, popping the cap to a Bartles & Jaymes. He took a sip. “ Obviously .”

Jonah didn’t answer.

“You sure you don’t want one?” Will asked him, making his own perusal of the wine cooler now that Tanner, Matthew, and Kyle each had their pick.

“I’m good.”

Will shrugged. “Okay.”

Jonah contemplated escape. If he left too soon, his absence would immediately be noticed. If he waited an hour—waited for them to get tipsier—he might be able to slip out from under their noses. It didn't feel right to leave without warning, though. Maybe he could tell Will that he was coming down with a cold or something—that it was highly contagious. Yes, that's what he would do.

“Hello, boys.”

The five of them looked to their right, where five of the opposite sex were posturing in an aromatic cloud of Love’s Baby Soft. Marissa stood at the head, her blonde hair teased in a voluminous side-ponytail streaked with temporary glitter spray and a lamé mini-dress in hot pink, buffed by shoulder pads. From her left to right was big-eyed, soft-voiced Tracy Linwood; loud, plucky Kimber Desai; and the copycat, Danielle Waters. At the very back was a permed girl with chestnut eyes. She wore a slouchy off-the-shoulder sweatshirt dress in deep purple over neon green tights; fuzzy leg warmers over ankle boots. Full lips were a frosty mauve. Smoke dusting eyelids. Her gaze fell on Jonah and it did not pull away. Brooke Evans, he guessed.

Will’s brows lifted. “Wow,” he breathed, as if the mere presence of Marissa was enough to wipe his entire vocabulary.

Marissa waltzed over to peck him on the lips. She then turned to Jonah, hooking an arm around Will's neck.

“Jojo!” she said brightly. “You've finally come out of hiding!”

Jonah tried not to wrinkle his nose like he had yesterday. “Yeah.”

Marissa looked at her girlfriends over her shoulder. “Told you, Brooke,” she preened ominously. Brooke’s cheeks shaded deeper than her blush.

The girls giggled. The boys smirked. Jonah shifted uncomfortably.

“Well!” Marissa exclaimed, pulling away from Will and clapping her hands together. “Now that we're all here, why don't we get right to it?”

“Just opened this beer, Mar,” Tanner said lazily, swishing the bottle around in the air.

“I don't care, Tanner ,” she bit back, putting her hands on her hips. “This is my party and my big day. We do what I want.”

“What do you think of Mar bein’ older than you, Will?” Matthew asked cheekily, nudging Will in the ankle. Will glared at him.

“She’s only gonna be older for a month,” he said defensively.

“Don’t listen to him, Willikins,” Marissa piped. Jonah held in both a nose-wrinkle and a cringe. “Now, ladies, what shall we play first?”

“Spin the bottle!” Kimber suggested, looking straight at Matthew. Jonah's stomach dropped.

“That's so juvenile, Kimmy,” Tracy said sagely. “We aren't sixth graders.”

“Agree,” Tanner agreed.

“Agree,” Danielle agreed.

Kimber pouted at them.

“Tracy does have a point,” Marissa said. She tilted her head as if to think, but the way she next smiled told Jonah the night's activities had been planned long before she'd asked their opinions. “How about seven minutes in heaven?”

Jonah’s stomach dropped further. The girls gasped, scandalized and excited.

“What about you and Will?” Kyle asked, crossing his arms. “You two are together.”

“That's what makes it more fun,” Marissa said sweetly. Will frowned.

“Are we all in agreement?”

Approvals were tittered.

“Wonderful!”

“Jonah hasn't agreed.” Kyle again.

Marissa’s saccharine smile pistoned onto Jonah, hawk-like. “Well, Jonah?” she prompted.

“Um…” He picked at his nails. “Can I just… Sit this one out?”

She cocked her head. “Why, Joney?”

“He’s a virgin,” Tanner belched.

Jonah reddened. He did not confirm nor deny. “I’m sick.”

Marissa waved him off. “No, you're not . You look perfectly fine.”

“Just a couple rounds, Jonah,” Kimber implored, fluttering her lashes at him. “Please?”

Jonah looked helplessly at Will. He gave a small, encouraging smile. Jonah deflated.

“…I guess I can go a couple.”

Marissa beamed. “Great! On the floor!”

He was the last to join the circle, painfully aware of Brooke directly across from him. Will leaned in close as Marissa retrieved a conveniently-placed Coca-Cola bottle from the gift table.

“You don't have to do anything in there if you really don't want to, Jo,” he whispered. “None of us will know. Well… except the person who goes in with you. But none of the rest of us.”

Jonah nodded mechanically.

“Unless you do want to, of course,” he added, oblivious to the way Marissa had narrowed her eyes at them.

“Alright…” He prayed to God the accursed bottle wouldn't land on him.

His prayers were answered for two rounds. The first couple to go in the closet were Tanner and Kimber—the latter of which was severely disappointed as she closed the door—and the seven minutes spent waiting for the two to emerge were almost as unbearable as listening to the scrape of the bottle against cardboard as it spun, a glass arrow of death. Brooke kept glancing at Jonah and Jonah kept glancing at Will and Will kept glancing at the floor, seemingly lost in thought. Tanner emerged with disheveled hair and Kimber’s rouge-red smeared on his lips, while Kimber herself was still severely disappointed. The bottle then chose Kyle and Danielle, and Jonah planned what he would say to get out of the fourth round as they disappeared into the closet. If he survived the third, he could probably survive getting shot twice in the head.

He did not survive the third. One flick of Marissa's hand—several rings of the bottle rolling in a rotunda—and he was suddenly in the closet, back pressed to the wall and arms like rods at his side. Jonah could hardly even see the outline of the doorknob.

Marissa ordered him to close his eyes, muffled through the grain. “Yeah,” he answered when asked if they were closed.

“No peeking!”

A creak of hinges. A second pair of breaths. The door shut and locked. For a moment, neither of them spoke. Neither moved.

“Jonah?” the girl asked. Her voice was soft and sweet. It wasn’t that of Tracy or Kimber or Danielle.

He opened his eyes. Jonah couldn’t see Brooke Evans, but he knew it was her. He said her name.

“…Yeah,” she replied, barely above a whisper.

Sweated beaded Jonah’s brow. He could feel the heat radiating from where she stood just a foot away. The scent of her perfume—powdery and a little citrusy—was more vivid in the enclosed space than it was in the main part of the basement. She shifted slightly, and the crinkle of her sweatshirt dress stifled the quiet wall separating them. He thought of what Will said to him about fingers and guitars.

“You don’t have to talk,” Brooke said. “I just… didn’t want to stand here in silence for seven minutes. That’s a really long time.”

He let out a strangled chuckle. “Feels like forever already.”

She laughed—a light, breathy sound. “I thought you were gonna bail on the party. Marissa said you might.”

“I almost did.”

“Why’d you come?”

“Will invited me.”

“Right.” She was quiet for a beat. “You two are close, huh?”

“Yeah.”

Silence.

“You seem different.” He imagined her fidgeting with the hem of her dress. “From the others.”

He wasn’t sure if she meant that in a good or bad way. Jonah shifted his weight from foot to foot. “Different how?”

“I don’t know… Just… Quieter. It’s nice. You don't really seem like the type to be hanging around them, honestly.”

“Oh.”

“I kind of didn’t want to come, either,” Brooke admitted.

He blinked at her in mild surprise. “Really?”

“Yeah. Marissa’s my friend, but…” Brooke dropped to a conspiratorial hush. “Sometimes it feels like everything’s a performance with her. You know? Like, you’re only here if you’re playing the part right.”

Jonah’s lips tugged into something close to a smile, pinpricks of relief poking holes in his fear. The seven minutes might not be so bad if this is all it was. They seemed to understand each other. “Yeah. I kind of always feel like I’m doing it wrong.”

She laughed softly again. “Me too.”

Jonah blinked, eyes adjusting just enough to make out the vaguest silhouette of her face—tilted toward his, a faint glimmer on her cheek where light from under the door caught her highlighter.

“You know, I think you’re really cool,” she said. And then, before he could even think of what she might be doing, Brooke stood on the tips of her toes and kissed him. It was hesitant, but sure enough that it made Jonah’s whole body tense. Mouth sticky with gloss. Slender hands sliding over his chest and across his shoulders.

He was too shocked to react, and so he let her do as she wished without reciprocity. He tried to understand what Will meant by lips the longer it went, but he felt increasingly trapped in the sack of meat that was his body. There was an absence of desire that functioned normally in everyone but him, and instead of grabbing her hips—like Will often did to Marissa—or pulling her closer, he thought of how he did not know this girl and cared for her in the distant way of a stranger; how it was an unknown rubbing against him, desecrating all the places God had made sacred for another. The tilt of her head was what choked Jonah—the horrid slick of her tongue against the seam of his lips. He pushed her away and she stumbled into the door, stunned and hurt and confused.

His memory of what came after was stunted. Odd. He would remember leaving the closet, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand as Brooke began to cry and the circle of humans looked from her to him in abject shock. He would remember rushing wordlessly up the stairs and Will calling his name, but he would not remember how Marissa fumed and raged as Will went after him. He would not remember much of that basement’s decoration or Olivia Newton-John blasting from a cassette. He would not remember walking down the street, trying to erase the feeling of Brooke—her mouth and her hands. He would not remember how he ended up meeting Luanne Calloway.

Chapter Text

Her mom had told her to get out of the damn car and walk back home, so she got out of the damn car.

She was stranded in Coldwater, sitting on a swing at the crusty playground by the crusty pool and swaying to the voice of Chris de Burgh. The lady in red is dancing with me, Luanne mouthed. Cheek to cheek. There’s nobody here. It’s just you and me.

She lifted her head and examined the wilted stretch of grass beyond the playground limits, and beyond that the antiquated asphalt leading toward the trailer houses. It was nasty, this town. Absolutely atrocious. The roads were shit, the people were shit, and judging from how she felt like she was about to hit the wood chips below, the swings were shit, too. Everything was shit, basically. You couldn’t have a malfunctioning playground and expect the rest of the place to be worth a dime. If she had to pick between Coldwater and Lyons, though, she’d choose Coldwater in a heartbeat.

C’mon, Annie. It’ll be fun. I won’t hurt ya.

Luanne screwed her face, skidding to a halt. She kicked violently at the wood chips and imagined them piercing Sean’s eyes, blinding him. She'd thought up plenty of ways to torture him over the years, but this was the most satisfying at the current moment—devilishly creative. If he couldn't see, then he couldn't move his hands in awful ways. Every wrong thing in the world would probably be righted if Sean wasn't able to move his hands.

She didn't believe in fate or destiny, but she figured that if it was real, then the entire system needed a rework. It'd be really terrible to learn she’d been fated with Sean. But Luanne did see Jonah Henris shuffling down the antiquated asphalt at the exact moment Chris de Burgh sang lady in red during the second chorus. It made her snicker that he wasn't a lady and how there wasn't a speck of red on him—clothing-wise, at least. His hair was a completely different story. Jonah Henris—a name yet unknown to her—was the most redhead-looking redhead she'd ever seen in her life. It was as close to fate as she was ever going to get. In the year leading up to her death, it would make her question her doubt of the concept. She hated the idea of being fated to Sean, but she felt the opposite about being fated to Jonah. She wanted it badly. Call her selfish. Luanne wouldn’t deny it.

She watched him amble ploddingly from the road to the playground, cutting through the wilted grass. His head was lowered the whole way and so she couldn’t see his face until he reached the wooden borders of the playground and stopped to look around. He saw her post-haste. As he was forming an expression of surprise, she studied his face, his clothes, his build. Pleasantly crafted in his crooked unconventionalness. He seemed as dangerous as a lost puppy, but she remained vigilant as she offered the empty swing to her left. Luanne fingered the Swiss knife in her jacket pocket—Sean’s, stolen on the way out of his camper.

“Don’t let me stop you,” she said casually, hitting pause on her Walkman and took off her headphones.

Jonah bit his lip. The pull of his teeth called attention to the glitter stuck there. She gleaned two things, the first being that he’d likely been kissing a girl and the second being that it likely wasn’t a fun experience. Whether it was because of him or because of the girl was yet to be determined.

With exaggerated reluctance, Jonah took the offered swing. He stared off at an undefinable point in the distance, quickly losing awareness of her existence.

“You look like a tomato,” Luanne said plainly.

Jonah turned his head to peer at her. She smiled at him, thin and sharp. “Your hair,” she added by way of explanation. “Anyone ever tell you that before?”

“No…” he said uncertainly. “But I've been told I look like a fish.”

“You seem like the type to ask a burglar if he wants something to drink while he's robbing your house.”

He stared at her.

“Oh, yeah? Well, you look…” He narrowed his eyes, big and brown as the wood chips. “Like corn.”

Luanne snorted. “That the best you got?”

“Spaghetti.”

“A bit better. Spaghetti tastes better than corn.”

“I like corn more.”

“Bad first impression you’re making right now.”

“Corn with butter and taco seasoning beats spaghetti any day. Noodles are so… bland. They’re nothing without sauce.”

“Well, duh . Noodles are the base of the dish. Spaghetti is the base of the dish. The toppings are where you get creative. It's the same thing as corn but with more variety.”

“Okay… Then the real question is which is the better base.” He paused. “It's corn.”

“That’s probably the worst opinion I’ve ever heard. Never say that to me again.”

He grinned. She grinned back. Luanne would never forget the way he looked tonight.

Chapter Text

She ran into Jonah again. The meeting was of her own orchestration; Luanne wasn’t one to deny the truth. She found out after a bit of asking around at school that he played guitar and was close to the star player of the Coldwater Cougars (the bane of the Lyon Vixens) and went to every sporting event said star player was at. When basketball season started, she decided for the first time in her life that she would like to see a basketball game—not one for her own school, but a basketball game nonetheless.

Coldwater started off their season against the Madison Chiefs. She tried to haggle the entrance fee (a fail) and tried to snag a seat at the back of the bleachers (another fail) and was forced to sit at the very front. The crowd shrieked as the Cougars were led in by a blue-eyed boy, but her eyes caught on Tomato-Top, who was sitting at the back of the other bleachers across the gymnasium. He had a notebook open in his lap and was scribbling in it furiously, out-of-tune with the meatheads and ditzes cajoling around him. One of them—a blonde girl in a side-ponytail and cheer uniform who looked like the female equivalent of an asthma attack—poked him in the shoulder. He jolted as if stung and slapped his notebook shut. Blondie said something to Tomato-Top that made him frown. He shook his head. Blondie crossed her arms and scooched away. Luanne found this far more intriguing than the free-throws.

At half-time, Tomato-Top shrugged his backpack over his coat and climbed down the bleachers, waving at Blue-Eyes as he headed for the exit. Blue-Eyes waved back, and it occurred to Luanne that Tomato-Top was leaving and probably not going to return. She mourned the loss of the five dollars she’d wasted to get in and shot after him.

Luanne caught up as he was walking past the school playground, hands buried in his jacket pockets. He was a flare, brilliant against the lightly powdered earth. She slowed her pace to make it seem like she'd run into him naturally.

“Hey! Tomato-Top!”

He stalled and glanced over his shoulder, brightening with recognition. She walked leisurely up to his side.

“Funny seein’ you here,” Luanne said cheerfully.

“Is it?”

“That’s what I just said.”

He hummed and looked ahead. “Well, this is my school, so…”

“Who’s to say it’s not mine, too?”

“I’ve never seen you around before.”

“Maybe I’m just real quiet.”

“I think I’d have noticed you by now.” His breath clouded in the air. “You don’t seem that quiet to me.”

Luanne smiled. He’d be astonished at how the kids in Lyons walked right past her. “You seem quiet to me.”

He stopped where the sidewalk met the road. Luanne continued ahead a few steps, hopping onto the curb.

“Why are you here?” Tomato-Top asked.

“Why do you think I am?”

She wondered what he was thinking as his eyes dropped from the gold of her hair (waist-length and volume-less) to the black of her hoodie (two sizes too big) to the blue of her jeans. Sean liked to say she was pretty, but she didn’t give a shit about the things Sean said. His words were untrustworthy, as were her daily examinations of herself in the bathroom mirror.

“I don’t know,” Tomato-Top said. “But I know you aren't for the game.”

Luanne considered lying, but again, she wasn’t one to deny the truth. “I wanted to see you.”

He turned a touch wary. “Why?”

She shrugged, kicking a patch of slush off the curb. She couldn’t very well say that she’d started thinking about him as the lady in red, or the frequency with which she wondered about that night on the swingset. It was too childish.

“You’re interesting,” she decided.

“Interesting?” he echoed, like he wasn’t sure if it was a compliment or a red flag.

“Yeah. You have bad taste in food but you make good conversation.”

Tomato-Top blinked. “Is that your way of saying you like me?”

“In what way are we referring to?”

His ears turned as red as his hair. “Any way, I guess.”

Luanne tilted her head and crossed her arm beneath her non-existent chest. “Hmmm… You think pretty highly of yourself, don’t you?”

“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I’m just… I’m bad at reading people. I don’t want to be surprised.”

She looked at his lips. The glitter was gone. “Don’t worry about it, Tomato. I don’t like being surprised, either.”

Tomato-Top stepped closer to her, onto the road. He presented her with his name and she sounded it out in her head. Jo-nah. Hen-ris. She already knew it—had already decided that she liked the way it rolled off her tongue, particularly the blip of space connecting jo and nah and how it brought them together fluidly. If she were to get even more specific, she liked the purr of the j and the o as they bumped into the n. It reminded her of driving across sun-dappled flatland and coming across one of those bumps in the road that made your stomach swoop deliciously. She offered her name as well. Lu-anne. Call-o-way.

Chapter Text

They walked through the evening, winding without destination through the town. The cold coated her and she shivered and he offered his coat. She refused. Fifteen minutes later, he offered again—insisted, really. This time she accepted and was thankful to see he had a thick jacket underneath.

Jonah Henris was incredibly easy to talk to once he cracked. He spoke vibrantly, vivid despite his low register and thoughtful, contemplative lapses. Luanne learned quite a bit about him that day—surface-level stuff that would've been highly mundane to anyone but herself and if it were from anyone but him. He was 15 like her, born on October 5—twenty days before she was in 1973. He had a little brother named Christopher, who he spoke of so reverently she might have mistaken the kid for some sort of god under different circumstances. His favorite thing (period) was music, and he had a “killer” teacher who was one of his biggest inspirations for songwriting. Almost his entire life revolved around music, in fact. It was impossible for him to envision a future without it. Music was his way of communicating when language was too incomprehensible, too restrictive, too bland. Music brought color to the dull strokes of his life, and he was a firm believer in its ability to heal—that the Lord had given humans the capacity to sing and organize sound as an innate balm for themselves and those they loved. He spoke so passionately that Luanne knew this was where she would lose him. He would look at her expectantly with his wood-chip eyes and she would struggle in un-swam waters and the conversation would finally die.

The truth about Luanne Calloway was that she had no truths at all. No interesting ones, anyway. She grew up in a trailer house just off Route 13, in a town so small it eventually smothered each of its miserable residents. Her mother was the type of woman who lived on pause. She got pregnant at 17 and kept trying to hit rewind and kept missing the button because she drank absorbent levels of Jim Beam, which made her vision fuzzy and her heart fuzzier, leaving no room in it for Luanne. At 32, Carol Larson was still looking for someone to take care of her, and Luanne considered herself smart because she was aware of this from a young age. The second she popped out of the womb, she understood she was only as important as she was convenient—the kind of child expected to stay quiet during parties, fetch cigarettes from the counter, and disappear when the wrong kind of men were over. What else was there to her besides being a ghost who occasionally became corporeal to grab Marlboros for her still-living mother?

The answer was: not much. Luanne liked skateboarding and she was pretty good at it. There was a rink in Coldwater that Sean sometimes dropped her off at, as crusty as the rest of the town’s facilities but a looping hole of freedom she appreciated nonetheless. It wasn't something she could make into a career like Jonah could with music, however, and it caused her hell more often than it was a balm. What else, then? There was reading—she liked doing that once in a while. Once a week. Once a month, maybe. Once a year might be more accurate.

Point was she liked to read. She liked doing her makeup and those rare moments where she put on eyeliner and felt pretty. She liked watching movies, specifically black-and-white noirs because that was what Nick—the best boyfriend her mom ever had—used to put on for her as a kid. She liked talking. Talking gave her shape. She could be funny if she wanted, or weird, or brash—worth paying attention to, even if only for the duration of the conversation. Talking reminded her she was real, not just a smudge in someone’s memory.

“I dunno,” she said as Jonah waited patiently for her to talk about herself. “I wanna hear more about you.”

“There's not much to me, honestly. I think I've covered pretty much everything.” He looked down at her. Jonah was about half a head taller. It was strange—she didn’t feel intimidated by him in the slightest. “I’ve talked enough about myself already.”

“Well, Jonah Henris… There's not much to me, either, so unless you want to bore yourself to death…”

“I haven't been bored once talking to you,” he said, perfectly sincere.

“You must be real desperate for conversation,” Luanne said, kicking a rock down the sidewalk. “Or a real good liar.”

“You sought me out—I don't think I'm the desperate one. And I don't like to lie.”

“Everythin’ you say is true, then?”

“I try to make it that way, yeah. If I lie I have to be in dire circumstances.”

She tilted her head up at him, squinting her eyes. “You’re real religious, aren't you?”

“Mhm,” he said, perfectly sincere yet again. “You?”

“I don't believe in God.”

“Oh.” He glanced down at her throat. She knew he was thinking of her necklace: a black cross etched in fine, sweeping detail Nick had left her.

“Don't bother trying to convert me. Tired of those door-knockin’ Jehovah's.”

“Lucky for you I’m a Baptist.” A thoughtful, contemplative lapse. “Why, if you don't mind me asking?”

“Just wasn't raised that way, I guess,” Luanne said. “I got the same reasons as a lot of people. Don't see how an all-loving and benevolent God can let bad things happen.”

Jonah didn't talk for a bit, long enough for her to wonder if this was where she lost him.

“It's not… It's not Him, though. God's not the one who does those things.”

“I'm not saying He is. I'm just wondering why he's allowing them to happen.”

“Humans are inherently sinful,” Jonah said, with a softness that made the words less like judgment and more like observation. “He gave us free will. If He stopped all the bad stuff, He'd have to take that away, too. The stuff that's good. He's a loving God, so what kind of love would that be if He didn't give us the freedom to love Him back?”

Luanne hummed low in her throat, non-committal. “Sounds like a raw deal.”

“Maybe. But it makes it mean more when people choose to be good. Like… It matters more when you decide to love someone. Or to forgive. Or to be kind instead of cruel. In my opinion, it means more. And all those people who do bad things get what they deserve in the end. It might not seem like it, but that's only because we're thinking in earthly terms. We’re called to think beyond that, in everything we do. What happens in this life—in this world—is just a blip. There's a reason hell exists. I'd rather choose to believe in a God who punishes than a God who doesn't exist at all.” 

She didn't say anything for a while. Her boots scuffed the sidewalk. The breeze nipped at her ears. They passed under a flickering streetlight, shadows cast long and wavering. Sean came to her mind and made her itch. His hands, hairy and tight on her arms. His solvent breath. The way he spat Annie and the way he crooned it when her mom wasn't watching—or when she was and he was feeling bold. She supposed what Jonah was saying made sense. In another life where she was less selfish, she'd be inclined to agree.

“Sorry,” Jonah murmured. “I promise I'm not trying to convert you.”

“It's alright, Jonah Henris.”

Luanne wanted to say more—explain that he could ramble about egg prices and she would listen to him for hours, picking apart the inflections in his voice. Take some of his patience and stitch it to herself. She was about to sew up a response that conveyed this concept without sounding too creepy when she was interrupted by the roar of an engine.

Jonah jumped, startled. Luanne's mouth twisted into a frown. She was not startled. She was disappointed this was coming to its inevitable end.

Sean's green Chevrolet rolled up beside them on the street, jerking to a stop. Cigarette smoke trickled out the driver’s side window as it inched down, revealing a sun-darkened forearm but little else of the man behind the wheel.

“Thought I dropped you off at the school.” More smoke. “This don't look like a basketball game to me.”

“Wanted some air,” Luanne said tonelessly.

“You're supposed to stay where you're put, Annie, and that was the school.” 

“It’s my fault,” Jonah declared, a complete and utter fool. Now she wanted him to shut up—not for her sake, but his own. “I invited her on a walk.”

A face came into view: salt-and-pepper stubble and stormy blue eyes that slitted on Jonah. A man in his 40s with skin worn to its 70s.

“Who’re you?” Sean asked.

“Jonah Henris.”

“Henris…” Sean rubbed at the prickly forest of his jaw. “You’re Rodney's boy, ain't ya?”

Jonah nodded.

He smirked. “I used to see him down at the Roadhouse ‘fore he became a family man ‘n all that. Still remember how badly he held his liquor.”

Jonah didn't reply. The stormy eyes shifted from him to Luanne. “Get in, Annie. We're goin’ home.”

She fought the desire to step back and align herself next to Jonah as she came around the nose of the pickup—tugged at the handle and slid onto the stained seat. Jonah was trained on her. She could feel the honey of his gaze and relished it. Luanne knew she could not risk being the object of its attention again.

“Say hi to your daddy for me, Jonah,” Sean ordered.

He hit the gas. The Chevy screamed. Jonah faded in the rearview and was gone from her life for an infinitesimal number of days, simple as that.

Chapter Text

The first time Luanne met Sean, she was 13 years old. He was 41, the brother of her mom's current, two-year long boyfriend, Aaron Powell. He and the rest of Drew’s compatriots came over to grill in the summer of 1986. She was introduced to each of them by her mom. Robert. Marcus. Bob. Sean. Most of them lost interest instantaneously, but Sean’s eyes were pulled in her direction with increasing frequency as the sun bled into the moon and the skies un-shuttered to starlight.

The first time he laid a hand on her, she was 14 and had endured a year of blatant staring. It started with a hand on the back. A whisper. The kind of things that could be excused if you squinted. Luanne didn’t squint. She saw him for what he was, and she saw the danger she’d be in if she kept trying to fight.

She did, anyway. The bolder he grew, the harder she bit. By 15, she’d learned to recognize the different kinds of silences people used when they didn’t want to see. Her mom didn’t ask questions. Luanne stopped offering answers. She did not complain. She knew she could have it worse—that there was greater evil Sean had yet to do—and it was this that drove her forward. Her oasis in a vast and lonely desert.

Chapter Text

To banish the thought of Sean that Sunday, she thought of Jonah instead. She drew him slowly in her mind, and every stroke made heat rise to her face. His eyelashes, frustratingly long and thick—totally unfair because he was a boy and she, as a girl, wasn't able to scoop half as much light when she blinked. His mouth and how it moved when he rambled, especially about music. The slope of his nose, far more interesting than the straight line of Brady’s, who was the most popular boy at her school. His voice, low and steady and scratched at the edges. His scent, woodsmoke and detergent. She marveled at his sincerity: how he spoke without being preachy and was kind without being soft. She admired his love for his family and wished she could have the same. They sounded like good people, and she was happy Jonah had them. His parents must've been why he turned out so wonderful.

But it makes it mean more when people choose to be good. It matters more when you decide to love someone. Or to forgive. Or to be kind instead of cruel.

Who talked like that at 15? It made her feel duller by comparison, but also warmer—maybe he saw something in Luanne she didn't herself. She blushed. Grinned into her pillow. Felt embarrassed, scowled as she wondered how to vomit up her butterflies, then thought of his smile and kicked her feet.

Jonah Henris, she sounded out, savoring the syllables that comprised him. Her first and only crush—a concept she could hardly wrap her head around. Luanne had never had romantic interest in anyone her entire life. She found the boys at school repulsive—she could appreciate a fine male when she saw one, but most of the time their looks were ruined by their personality. Or by the existence of Sean. She'd gone through a period in her childhood where she'd hated men and believed them to be the scum of the earth. In her adolescence, Luanne tried to rationalize away that bias. She'd listen to girls tittering about cute boys and try to conjure in herself that same attraction, only to fail and begin to think she was fundamentally wrong in some way. Jonah was the first person to ever challenge her like this.

Should she tell him? Would she even get the chance to tell him? Sean was never going to drive her to another game in Coldwater now that he'd seen her with a boy and she had no other way of getting there by herself. Her mom and Aaron certainly wouldn't take her. Disappointment filled her like a sieve—the familiar clamp of futility.

Luanne rolled onto her back and glared at her ceiling. No. She was thinking about Jonah to loosen that clamp, not tighten it. She went back to drawing his lovely eyelashes and mouth and nose. How would they reconfigure should she bare her heart to him? Into shock? Disgust? Jonah was an honest boy (even if he had lied to Sean) who deserved honesty in return. I’m bad at reading people. I don't like to be surprised.

She vowed to herself that if she somehow got more opportunities to see Jonah, she wouldn't surprise him. She’d let him know how she felt straight away, even if she doubted her feelings would be returned.

“Annie!” her mom yelled from the bathroom, wrenching her from her daydream. “Are you deaf?! Answer the phone!”

Luanne heard it, then: the ringing. She scrambled out of bed and dashed to the living room and ripped up the musty landline on a small table by the couch.

“Hello?” she said into the receiver, sharper than intended.

“Luanne?” Soft and slow, banked by something like relief. She was speechless for a good, long second.

“You still there?” Jonah asked.

“How'd you get my number?” she hissed, keeping her voice low. Thankfully her mom was in the shower and Aaron at work, so no one would be able to question who she was talking to.

“Phone book. Took a bit of searching but I finally found one for your town.” The satisfaction in his voice made her heart leap. “Are you busy?”

“No, not really…” She narrowed her eyes as if he were in front of her. “Why?”

“Wanna hang out?”

The simplicity of this request astounded her. “What? I… Where?” That clamp of futility again. “I can't go to Coldwater.”

“You don’t need to. I'm about to head over to Lyons.”

That was all it took. She told him where to go and grabbed the coat he'd left her with (and that she had, admittedly, sniffed like a freak a couple times). Luanne screamed at her mom through the bathroom door and over the roar of shower water that was going out to a friend's. It took less than a minute for her to escape the house.

Chapter Text

Lyons was one of those towns you could drive through in under five minutes. Enter and blink, and it was already a smear in the distance growing as your car rumbled away. Nestled in the folds of rural southern Missouri, it was surrounded by thick woods and long stretches of two-lane highways, making it boring as all hell—sweltering in summer and abysmal in winter. Its saving grace were the fields—some for grazing, some for hay—that rolled gently outward into the far-off lumps of hills and caught the sun just right at golden hour, turning them into seas of ichor. The sky felt big in Lyons, and at night, she could see the stars, clear and sharp against the dark. She could look at them and pretend she was blessed, living with a normal father and a normal mother in a normal city many miles away—maybe with a normal little sibling like Christopher and attending a normal high school where she was a girl with normal inclinations and normal friends.

The town itself is small but spread out. Hammond Street cuts through the heart of Lyons and serves as its spine. The first ridge of this cord was a gas station with two outdated pumps, and the second was the mini-mart that sold everything from bait to fountain drinks to expired Twinkies. The base of the cord was Feed & Farm Supply, where old-timers swarmed like flies around the porch. Several storefronts sit forsaken, faded flyers taped in a quilt on the windows. The post office, fire station, and library were all in squat brick buildings across the First Baptist Church, marked by a wooden board that read, CH _ _ CH: WHAT'S MISSING? U R. She told Jonah to meet her at the base of the cord, where Dee’s Diner was situated in a single-story building with red-and-white awning.

Luanne saw him standing by the rectangular lightbox, hands shoved in his coat pockets and turning in lackadaisical circles. He wasn’t alone. Blue-Eyes from the basketball game—Will Thatcher—was leaning against the nicest car she'd ever laid eyes on—a shiny red Chevrolet Corvette—hands also in his pockets. He was frowning—glowering, almost—at Jonah, lips moving. Talking. Luanne slowed, peeking around the corner of the Dee’s. The road she took to get from the trailer park to Hammond Street brought her up from behind, so unless they had eyes in the back of their head, they shouldn't have seen her.

“Can you stop being so pessimistic?” Jonah asked, slightly annoyed. “I want to see her.”

Luanne wanted to slap herself for the way that made her color.

“Jo,” Will said, slightly whiny. “C’mon. What if she's trying to murder you or something?”

Jonah stopped circling to look at Will flatly. “Really?”

“She's just some random girl you ran into and started stalking you immediately after. That's, like, serial killer behavior.”

“She's not just some random girl.”

“You don't know her!”

“I didn't know Brooke, either.”

Will went silent. “It couldn't have been that bad…” He sounded strained.

“I hated it.”

“Then maybe you shouldn't have gone.” The guilt was obvious now.

“You asked me to, Will,” Jonah said, hurt. “I went for you. I didn't sign up for…”

“You're your own person, aren't you, Jonah? You could’ve chosen not to go if you really didn't want to.”

“If I’m my own person—a person outside of you—that means I can choose to make friends outside of yours .” 

“You're obviously not interested in being ‘friends’ with her,” Will scintillated. “Girls and guys can't just be friends, anyway. That's not how it works.”

Jonah worked his lovely jaw and started circling again. “You’re making a big deal out of nothing.”

“I’m pointing out the hypocrisy in kissing another girl you don't know.” His tone turned as frigid as the weather. He threw his arms up. “Yeah, that makes complete sense.”

“I'm not going to kiss her,” Jonah said, and for the first time she heard something close to anger in his voice. “I don't want to kiss anyone, Will! Not until I'm in love and married and old! I just want to get to know her more. I know that might be hard for you to wrap your head around since all you're interested in is lips and hips.”

Will’s jaw tightened. He kicked gravel and sludge with the heel of his shoe, sending rocks skittering under the car. “Jonah, she's…”

“She's what?”

“She's… different.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jonah demanded.

“She's not like us. And Marissa… She's heard bad things about her.”

“What things?”

Will lowered his voice. “She fucks around, Jonah. She probably just wants in your pants.”

Luanne flinched. She hated the way Jonah opened his mouth—closed it and opened it again.

“You shouldn't spread rumors,” he settled on. 

“I just want you to know she might not be who you think she is.”

“Right. ‘Cause she's different.”

“She is!” Will insisted. “She's not like us.”

“I'm not like you, Will. I've never been like you and Tanner and the rest of them.” Jonah’s expression was pained. “You act like I'm a part of you all but I'm not and I'm reminded of it every day. I just—I feel like an intruder when I'm with you guys. Like… Like a zoo animal, or something…”

“You're different from the others, Jo.”

Jonah bristled. “The way she is?”

“No!” Will denied. “No, I meant—I meant in a good way…”

“How? How am I any different from anyone else?”

“You’re…” Will fumbled. “You're you.”

“I get a free pass because I'm me?”

“I'm looking out for you, Jonah!” he burst, pushing off his car. “I don't want you getting caught up with the wrong people. It's just you and me, remember? We have to watch each other's backs. We're brothers.”

“You sound like your parents.”

Will stiffened. “That’s not— ”

Luanne wanted to hear no more. She stepped out from behind Dee’s and wandered toward them, feigning casualness. Jonah noticed her immediately. Will noticed the expression on Jonah immediately and looked at her over his shoulder. His mouth snapped shut.

Jonah smiled. Will turned away.

Chapter Text

Will could hardly look at Luanne when they were introduced. He gave her a flat, thin smile and said he was going to drive around—he’d be back in two hours to pick Jonah up. She was privately glad to watch his Corvette tear down the road.

They sat at the counter in Dee's. Jonah insisted that he pay for their malts and fries, which they shared. Luanne tried her utmost to not feel like they were on a date (her first), but it was hard when Jonah kept smiling at her and the lights kept tangling in his hair and he kept listening intently to every word that came out of her mouth—nonsense, really. She was talking to fill in the space, and because he kept asking her questions. Do you have a favorite movie? A favorite song? A favorite book? Double Indemnity. Eyes Without A Face. The Outsiders (it was the only book she could think of). He asked her what she liked to do and she—with her limited options—admitted that she liked skateboarding. Jonah’s brows lifted at this, as if he’d been sifting for gold and finally found a nugget.

“Too bad it's all wet and soggy outside,” he said disappointedly. “I would’ve liked to see you on it.”

“Pretty presumptuous of you, Jonah Henris,” Luanne said teasingly. “Thinkin’ I'll put on a show for you.”

Jonah blinked. She would've found it funny how quick he was to blush if she wasn't exactly the same way. “Oh—I meant— ”

“It's a joke.”

He pulled at his shirt collar and laughed awkwardly. “Sorry.”

“You apologize a lot,” she observed, sipping her malt.

“Sorry.” Jonah cringed. “Uh… Sorry.”

Luanne felt a laugh rise to her tongue. Jonah saw how she tried to swallow it and took a sip from his own malt, embarrassed.

“How about this,” she suggested. “If you show me how to play guitar, then I'll show you how to skateboard.”

“Deal. I'm probably gonna be really bad at it.”

“Doubt you'll be any worse than me on guitar.”

“Who knows?” He shrugged. “Maybe it's a hidden talent.”

“Maybe skateboarding’s yours, then.”

“I've got no coordination.”

“And I've never touched an instrument in my life.”

“I'm gonna fall on my face.”

“I'll help you up after I laugh at you.”

Jonah grinned. It faltered. He stirred his malt with his straw in a motion of deep-seated thought, the brown chocolate and milky foam melding within its glass confines. It kindled her worry.

“Somethin’ wrong?”

Jonah tugged at one of his curls a bit anxiously, but he looked her steadily in the eye. “How much did you hear of that conversation?”

Luanne stared. Sipped. She'd been trying not to think about that.

She fucks around, Jonah.

“A bit,” she answered vaguely.

“Will…” Jonah continued. “Don't take the things he says to heart. He's just worried about me ‘cause he doesn't know you. He wouldn't be saying all those things if he did.”

“Should he be saying them even if he never gets to know me?” She tried to sound certain of herself, but the words sounded bitter and frail.

“No,” Jonah said with the assurance she lacked. “I don't even know why he'd even believe them in the first place. Marissa’s always spreading rumors about people. Half of them she makes up herself.”

Luanne bit her lip, despising how vulnerable she suddenly felt. She'd been placed under a spotlight but could not see its color or source, or the circular outline through which it bound her. “So you don't believe it? That I fuck around and just want to get in your pants?”

Jonah watched her. She felt as though he were peeling her apart, pulling back the layers of her skin—there goes the epidermis, the dermis, the hypodermis. There goes the muscles and bones and fascia. There goes her heart. Did he like what he saw, or was it nothing but sticky cardium and arteries in his hands?

“You tell me,” he said, completely blank.

Luanne steeled herself. Lying very briefly crossed her mind—she was still afraid to admit her feelings outloud, and especially so soon. This was, after all, only the third time they'd met. But she was not one to deny the truth and she'd promised not to surprise him. “I do like you, Jonah. Not just in a friendly way. But I've never once thought about getting in your pants, or whatever.”

“What have you thought about?”

She fiddled with her straw. “Your smile, mostly. And your eyelashes. And how you don't seem real. Like, as a person. You're so…” God, this was embarrassing. “I dunno… Passionate. And honest. And other stuff. I've never met someone like you before.”

He watched her for a little while longer. She started to squirm. There were Texas-temperatures in that diner; she was sweating up a storm.

“Okay,” Jonah said, and returned to his malt.

Luanne blinked. “That's it?”

“I believe you.”

She stared at him, astonished. It couldn't be that easy. “You're too trusting.”

“Don't you want me to trust you?”

“Well… Yeah, but…”

“I trust my gut, and my gut is telling me to trust you.”

“What if your gut’s wrong?”

“Then I get hurt and move on.”

For the second time that day, Luanne was rendered speechless. Thankfully, however, she didn't have to come up with something to respond with. Jonah wasn't done.

“I don't think I will, though. My gut’s never wrong. I inherited it from my mom. You're also trying too hard to convince me not to trust you, which is making me want to trust you.” He took a fry from the basket between them. “My coat looks nice on you, by the way.”

She blushed. Lowered her face so it was hidden by her hair and he wouldn’t be able to see. “I've really never met someone like you before, Jonah Henris,” Luanne muttered.

Jonah lowered his voice. There was a hint of wonder in it, and it was a wonder that that wonder was for her. “I've really never met someone like you before, Luanne Calloway.”

Chapter Text

She led him to Hawthorne Crossing in the second hour, which wasn't as fancy as it sounded but was quiet and secluded—a rickety, unused railroad overpass near the edge of town, swallowed by honeysuckle and rust and the tracks had been pulled up years ago. It was shaded in the late afternoon and you could sit on the concrete ledge and look out over the spindly treetops and observe the piercing of the blue veil. It’s this they did first, still talking—still learning, putting fingers to contours and tracing them. She discovered his favorite band and his worst fear and how he came to be friends with Will Thatcher. Iron Maiden. Death. A kindergarten confrontation at recess. Will was crying about not being able to go on the swings because they were all taken; Jonah noticed and relinquished his for Will, who has been in awe of him ever since. They're best friends—brothers.

Luanne, in turn, told him that she likes Joan Jett & the Blackhearts and hates the dark and admits—begrudgingly—that she barely remembers anything about The Outsiders , just that the characters had weird-ass names. He looked at her earnestly as the sun began to sink and she nearly told him about Sean. It was a very close, dangerous thing, and she feared that —out of everything—would be what lost him at last.

She did not, in fact, tell him about Sean that evening, and though she promised herself to save it for another day, she never would reveal the nature of that relationship. She shunned most of her chances to do so, like the many times he’d ask about her family and the man in the truck. In response, she’d call Sean a family friend or unimportant or some other half-truth that left no room for questioning. Jonah would frown, but would not press her.

There was one day, in particular, that she would’ve gone on to regret had she lived long enough for such things to mature in her. It was after his shy suggestion that she go to prom with him, so quiet and evasive that she wondered if he was actually asking her to be his date. They were across from each other on the wilted grass by the swings where they’d first met, knees kissing. She was holding his right hand in her left, dragging her pointer over the valleys and callouses and the white scar on his thumb—a tie to Will that ran deeper than she would ever be able to grasp. Luanne said she would, duh , and he smiled as he said I feel like I have to do something.

Like what?

I don’t know. To show how much I like you.

You do that pretty much every day. Trust me, I know.

Something more.

He looked at her lips. Looked uncertain. Looked down at his lap.

Well… she said softly. The great thing about feeling like you have to do something is being able to choose whether you really want to or not.

I do want to, I think, but…

Save it for another day, then, Jonah. When you don't just think you want to.

Now, she believed—emeshed in the secrecy of the crossing—was not the time for those types of confessions. They raced down the sloping grass of the overpass and ducked beneath the spineless railway and searched the earth for lost possessions. Jonah found a small chunk of slate and braced himself along the abutment, poising his left hand to defile the cement. He etched in it his initials, then offered the slate to her.

“You wanna be corny?”

“Is there something to be corny about?”

Luanne chewed her lip. Took the rock and felt the atoms of his hands stirring against hers. She wrote her initials beneath it. J.H. + L.C. She would have been glad to know they are still there.

Chapter Text

Luanne would have liked to believe there existed infinite possibilities between herself and Jonah, but only one that would've come to be. She would have believed, in God's plan, that she taught him more than how to not fly off a skateboard, and that his hands would have guided her along the frets of his guitar—that she would have relished his touch and the way his voice got when he was focused on a singular task. In His plan, Jonah took her to the swings and was her first kiss. He stole her away from Carol and Aaron and Sean, and after graduation, he brought her with him and Will to university. She became friends with Will (or as close to it as feasibly possible) and Jonah introduced her to his dad and mom and little Christopher. Somewhere down the line, they got into disagreements but never fought, and somewhere further down the line—between graduation and their first house—he made her his wife and showed her how to believe in God again by the sheer benevolence of his existence. She was a better mother to their children than her mother was to her. They watched them play in the yard with the dog he got her because it was her childhood dream to own one. She saw the gray in his hair and rested her cheek on his shoulder on their front porch. In His plan, she loved him absolutely.

Luanne did her makeup in front of her bedroom mirror the day of prom—made herself prettier than she believed herself to be. She put her hair in curls and red on her lips to match the nicest dress she owned, which really wasn't that nice but was all she had. She sat outside the trailer house and waited for him to pick her up as evening turned to dusk and dusk turned to night and night turned to Sunday.

He would come to her the next day, a thousand apologies on his lips. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I got sick. Yes, I'm okay now. I'm so sorry. There were shadows under his eyes, the whites stained red like he'd been crying—a shaky smile on his face like he was trying to hide it. He walked with a limp. He did not let her touch him again.

Chapter Text

Will couldn't pinpoint where everything went wrong, but if he could choose a specific day where things irrevocably changed for the worse, it would've been the day of Marissa's stupid birthday party that he—in his infinite stupidity—pressured Jonah to attend. Things took on the shape of normalcy afterwards, but they were never quite as clear or bright as they used to be. Not to Will, at least, because no matter how much they acted like it never happened, the guilt continued to rot and blacken everything in his periphery.

The smart thing to do would’ve been to let Jonah go. Excommunicate him. If he’d been banished from Will's life, then what came after may have been averted. But Will was not smart—academically or in any other sense, even if he had grades that were slightly higher than average. He thought better when he was on his feet and running his tongue. He was mediocre at every subject except history (the only one he had an actual interest in), and the reason he passed 10th grade was because Jonah hobbled him through Biology like a wounded soldier.

No, Will was not smart. He was incredibly dumb and incredibly greedy—two things you shouldn't be at the same time—and the pulse of his problem was that he wanted everything as much as he wanted Jonah in his life, two things you shouldn't want at the same time. There wasn't much more to it than that.

Chapter Text

That last year was alright, though. Good. Perfect in its minor imperfections. Better than any of the ones that came before it, even, because Jonah was happier than Will had seen him in a long, long time.

They spent most days in the woods as soon as the snow thawed, mirroring a childhood laced through trees and chasing the edge of night. They swam in the quarry pit, jumping off rocks and racing to floating logs and lying on the bank with their heads cushioned on their arms, drying in the sun. Insects and birdsong formed a symphony in the treeline, echoing their hollers as they broke the surface of the water. Will tried not to feel like his chest was caving in when he reached for Jonah—casual in the way they’ve always been—and felt him stiffen under his hand.

In late-April, they wandered through the dump and found an old Chevrolet pickup; Jonah wiped dirt from the hood with a finger and said, half-jokingly, that they should make it a project—fix it up. Will studied his reflection in a side-mirror and replied, “Why not?”

The rest of the month was spent tinkering under the hood: greasy hands, mutual frustration, and thrill when the engine finally turned over. Triumph when he threw an arm around Jonah out of habit and Jonah hugged him back, smiling ear to ear.

Jonah made mixtapes for them to listen to as they drove down gravel roads in the moon hours. They rolled windows down in the Corvette, elbows limp out the side as Will steered them to the stars. He parked in an empty field and they talked on and on till there were no words left to say.

“What do you think college will be like?”

“Dunno. Better than here.”

“We gotta stick together.”

“Obviously.” Will paused. “What about Luanne?”

Jonah’s head lolled toward him against the head rest. “What about Marissa?”

Will pursed his lips. He didn't like to talk about Marissa, least of all with Jonah. “That doesn't answer my question.”

Jonah glanced at his hands. Picked at his nails. “You know we're not together.”

“Yeah… You need to hurry up and fix that. I'll pay for the rings.”

A look of alarm. “Who said anything about rings?”

“Me.”

“I'm 17.”

“Almost 18.”

“At least let me graduate high school first.”

“I mean… If you know, you know. That's when my grandparents got married.”

“Yeah, and your family turned out so happy…”

“Alright, point taken… But you two aren't Thatchers. You should be thankful for that. Use it to its full advantage.”

“Will…”

“You’re so into her it's kind of disgusting.”

More picking. “I'm not good enough for Luanne.”

Will was so astounded by this falsehood that he was rendered to silence. He scoffed. “That’s such bullshit, Jo. More like no one's good enough for you.”

“Don’t say that, Will. I'm not.”

“Name one reason. Not like I'll believe you, but name one.”

Jonah was quiet for many minutes. He shrugged. Will watched the rise and fall of his shoulders, two broad mounds illuminated by moonlight. “You should be worried about getting rings for yourself and Marissa,” he murmured.

Will did not feel for Marissa the way Jonah clearly felt for Luanne Calloway. When he kissed her now, it was a motion of routine and expectancy rather than hormonal desire for lips and hips. He knew they had no future together; his parents were pressuring him to meet some girl named Lucy whose father owned a conservation-aligned forestry firm in New York and to cut Marissa off, as if she were a dead limb. Coupled with the fact that Marissa had been showing blatant interest in other boys during games and parties and most likely outside his notice as well, the two of them together were a lost cause. Will had already rehearsed what he was going to say to break up with her.

“I can’t wait to leave,” Jonah said suddenly. It surprised him, a little, the quiet intensity bellied in his voice. Will was usually the one who showed the most enthusiasm about leaving Coldwater, knowing that it was where he was going to circle back to in the end. Someone had to take up the mantle of Thatcher & Co. someday and it certainly wasn’t going to be Clement.

“Yeah,” Will agreed. “Aren’t you gonna miss Chris, though? And your parents?”

“I’ll come back for them,” Jonah said musingly, staring out the windshield. “I’ll get them out of here.”

Will studied him oddly, but did not comment. The weeks traipsed one after another in slow and wondrous succession, days hazy and distinct all at once. Sitting in a canoe. Walking trails they knew as well as the backs of each other’s hands. Lying on the dock at the lake and listening to a thunderstorm roll in. The veneer of cobalt against the sun-tan of their skin. The gray subcutaneous of clouds. Branches shucking overhead to hide them like a secret. Jonah, his hair fanned out around him—no more real than he had ever been and would ever be.

Chapter Text

If Will wasn’t with Jonah, then he was sitting in on meetings with his dad at the lodge, listening to 40-year-old men talk about timber yields and mineral rights and trying not to rip his ears off in the process.

“Just sit,” Wayne once ordered during one of Will's many restless fits of twitching. “Listen. This is your heritage, Will. One day it'll all be yours.”

Will looked out the tall glass windows and at the green ocean of leaves—both above and below-foot—that secluded them from the rest of the country as a whole. They were surrounded by woods for miles, but in the lodge itself, Will felt distinctly separate from them, like an intruder who'd fenced himself in from the dangers of a land he wasn't meant to know. Out-of-state associates sat in clusters of leather chairs around cut-glass tumblers, discussing weather patterns and quarterly reports and occasionally ribbing his father for choosing to do his business somewhere so remote, even if he did own over half the town (a fact they found completely hilarious, for whatever reason). Will felt an even more distinct hopelessness in their presence, caged in as he was by their chortles and cigar smoke.

His mom was no better on the issue of his sordid education, nudging him relentlessly to apply to universities of her choosing: Yale, UVA, and maybe even Wharton. She'd failed spectacularly to convince Will to go to private school and get Clement anywhere in life and was desperate to rectify this mistake by thrusting him into an upstanding university, going so far as to coordinate private tutoring and a college admissions consultant under whose careful hand his practice essays were combed to the right balance of “individuality” and “legacy.” Will crushed his fingers in his coiffed hair at the end of each revision, read over the sludge he'd vomited, and saw Wharton fading further and further into the distance. She also expected him to attend every gala and local fundraiser, neither of which held the slightest interest in Will. They were way too long and way too boring, and he was introduced to way too many donors with daughters wearing smiles that said, “Wouldn't they make a handsome couple?”

He knew how the rest of his senior year would look. He'd start off interning for the company—reading case files, sitting in on asset review meetings, and giving mock hypothetical land deals, expected to talk less and learn more. His dad would start emphasizing “good conduct,” which meant early-morning workouts, punctuality, firm handshakes, and speaking with purpose. A trust fund payout would be gifted to him if he continued on the right path, and for his start-of-the-year debut into his parents’ world, he would give a speech co-written by his mom at their annual Legacy Dinner in New York City. No more thumb-twiddling, no more parties, no more romps in the woods if it wasn't to stain the earth with animal offal. No more lying by the lakeside.

Will had always rebelled in the ways he could throughout his life. Marissa had been one of them, as were the parties and drinking and occasional smoke or two. Sometimes he'd be struck with dizzying clarity in the middle of popping a Coors and realize he was turning into his brother. He had to pause to collect himself, listing out in his head the things that made them different entities. Will was marginally smarter, for one, and he wasn't a sadist. Those were already two great qualities to have. He loved his parents—even if they never really asked for his opinion—and he adored his little sister, to whom it was important that he be a stable figure in light of their father’s increasing work absences. He'd never truly dared to step out of line in his entire life, unlike Clement. Every face Will wore was a farce, including the one around his girlfriend and friends—a key to staying within the comfortable confines of what he knew. Boundaries that had been erected before he was born by a God he did believe in (another difference), but didn’t think was as cracked up as everyone claimed he was.

The final difference between himself and Clement was that Clement didn't have a Jonah. Will believed that if he did, he would’ve turned out better.

Chapter Text

Will’s life had been drawn out in a neat line from the moment he was born. He realized he was walking this line early on, but it only truly sunk in around the age of 12, when he was hunting with his dad and dared to wonder aloud the logistics of his plan of living with Jonah in the Swiss Alps someday (the location changed regularly). Wayne's hand was hot on his back as he led him through the cloying summer heat and the brambles underfoot. You don't have to worry about that, son, he’d said, rifle glinting in the sun. I have everything taken care of.

Taking care of it meant taking a brush and painting Jonah neatly out of the picture. The older Will grew, the less his parents wanted them spending time together—the less Jonah was invited over. Will saw the line narrow. Straighten.

He was going to graduate high school, middling. He was going to graduate from an Ivy League he'd gotten into with his parents’ money, middling. He was going to get married to someone he didn't know and probably wouldn't love. He was going to have children as soon as the ceremony was over. The only conversations he’d hold from that point on would be about timber yields and mineral rights. He was going to die in Missouri, in Coldwater, and in his loveless marriage. Maybe a tree from his own inherited land would topple and crush him as he was explaining this concept to his favorite blonde-haired, blue-eyed child. You don't have to worry about that, son, he'd say, inherited rifle glinting in the sun. I have everything taken care of. And he would never be able to escape because he had inherited the town he was going to die in, and he couldn't simply give up what the Thatcher men had worked toward so ungrateful maggots like himself could inherit it.

It wasn't so bad. He didn't mind a loveless marriage, he supposed—he sort of had experience in that with Marissa. He would also never have to worry about having a roof over his head or putting food on the table or regretting his chosen career path. Will didn't lack awareness of the privilege he'd been born into, unlike many of the children of his parents’ friends. He chalked it up to living so far removed from the rest of their kind. No big cities and penthouses for the Thatchers—just woods, woods, and more woods. They’d been one of the first families to settle in this part of Missouri—enticed by the uncharted land—and erected Coldwater around them. Kept it alive even as it began to shrink. They controlled Coldwater Timber Co. (the employer of over 70 people); held a land-leasing operation for seasonal hunters and fishing cabins; and owned major plots around town, rented to businesses and farmers alike. The Thatcher name was on the water tower, the high school auditorium, and the local library. The Thatcher Scholarship Fund was often the only way out for Coldwater kids, and the restoration of the town’s historic courthouse had been headed by Wayne and renamed after his grandmother. Even the lake was technically in their possession, it being the result of a privately-funded dam project by Will’s great-grandfather.

There was one thing in all the world the Thatchers hadn’t stuck its fingers in, and that was the Henrises. More specifically, Jonah Henris: the single blip in the straight, narrow line of Will’s existence. His best friend from now on until the end of time.

Put simply, Jonah was his greatest source of comfort. Will had learned the correct words to say when asked about his future: university, graduate, wife, kids, inheritance. But there were others he preferred, and together they formed a painting that flourished in its messy strokes—that he would stare at for hours when hopelessness choked the air from its lungs. Its backdrop was the woods, the most secret of places he knew. In the foreground were two boys, shifting to teenagers, shifting to men. They slept in the beryl smudge of the quarry. Traveled the country off-canvas. Fed off berries and chased rivers and told ghost stories at midnight. There was no Meridian, no lodge, no timber yields and mineral rights. There was no world in which Will could be happier.

Chapter Text

“Have you ever heard of theodicy?” Jonah once asked, searching through the books in the dustiest section of the public library.

“Don’t waste time asking questions you already know the answer to,” Will replied, pressing the crown of his head to the metal bookshelf. “You almost done?”

“Have you?” Jonah drew one of the books from the shelf. He flipped it open. Landed on a page and started reading some of the miniature scrawl across it.

“No, I have not.”

Jonah didn’t answer, furrowing his brow at the text instead. Will glanced at him, frowned, and reached over to pluck the book out of his hands. He managed to read a couple of nonsensical sentences before Jonah hissed his name, snatching it back and shoving Will in the shoulder.

“You’re so annoying sometimes…”

“Why do you read those?” Will queried. “They’re obviously bad for you.”

“What?”

“They make you all… annoyed.”

A flat look. “I don’t get annoyed.”

“See?”

“At least I’m not an alcoholic like you.”

Will scoffed jokingly, following dutifully as Jonah wound through the maze of shelves to the front desk. “I’m not an alcoholic.”

“You know who’s also said that?”

“Who?”

“Alcoholics.”

“I’m being serious, Jo.”

“I am, too.”

They reached the front desk. Will studied Jonah’s selection as they were piled in front of the librarian, hardcovered and yellow-paged. God, Power, and Evil: A Process of Theodicy by David Ray Griffin. The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis. Evil and the God of Love by John Hick. At the top was the book Will had read a bit of: City of God by Saint Augustine. He squinted at it.

“This isn’t even in English,” he said.

“That’s the translated version, so yeah. It is.” The librarian stamped the books one by one, tattooing their insides with a dull expression.

“Well, I stand by what I said about you getting annoyed by them.”

Will—who was conscious of every mood and inflection in Jonah’s countenance—was adroitly aware of this phenomenon. Jonah had been writing and reading almost non-stop in his many notebooks for the past two years, losing himself in songs and musings. The books he checked out were usually theological and philosophical, and he’d explain their concepts to Will in a voice that made it sound more like he was trying to explain it to himself. He was constantly frowning these days, and Will had come to believe those books were a leading cause of Jonah's extended silences and the vacant looks—the ones that scared the shit out of Will.

They'd cobbled together a routine for when both of them had free time. In the afternoon, Jonah would head to the library. Will would insert himself into the journey unprompted. Jonah would either return a book or check out a new one. Will would choose where they hung out afterwards, and for a good amount of that afternoon he would watch his pencil whip the air as he scribbled down reflections or lyrics or whatever it was that was getting him so frustrated, making idle conversation. Around the two to three hour mark, Will would drag him back to reality with a, “We should get something to eat,” or, “Wanna go swimming?” Jonah would be reluctant at first—slow to drop his pencil and close his book—but he opened up quickly once they were in the Corvette or Rodney's pickup, which they were allowed to borrow on occasion. This was Normal Jonah: the version that didn't scare the shit out of Will and the one he tried his utmost to keep anchored to earth.

“Hey, boys!”

Will looked over his shoulder and saw from a few feet behind them an oblong composite of boxy glasses and ruffled hair. He glowered on sight. It was his mortal enemy, Mr. Cotton.

“What a nice surprise,” the parasite went on, stepping closer to them. “Seeing you two out and about.”

Wish I could say the same, Will thought.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Enjoying the weather?”

“Yeah.”

Mr. Cotton was unmoved by Will’s bland responses. His placid smile slid directly onto Jonah, who still had his back turned—it was where his attention always seemed to fall. The librarian was now arranging the books in a plastic bag, moving at the pace of molasses.

“How are you, Jonah?” he asked.

Jonah turned. Looked up and blinked as if being woken from a dream. The ends of his mouth lifted in a poor return of Mr. Cotton’s cheer. “Good,” he said.

Mr. Cotton’s smile faltered for a half-second, almost too quick to notice. “You’ve been keeping up with our lessons, right? Gotta stay in shape for this year’s winter showcase. Last one before you graduate.”

Jonah nodded and offered nothing more. Will frowned.

“Can’t believe you’re already— ”

“Oh, would you look at that,” Will interrupted, reaching over the desk to snatch the bag of books and shoving Jonah in the direction of the entrance. “Gladys got us a bag! Gotta get a move on now, Mr. C. Great conversation.”

Mr. Cotton’s smile cracked. “But— ”

Jonah nearly stumbled on the front steps, Will on his heels. “See you around!”

He let the library door shut in Mr. Cotton’s face.

Chapter Text

Jonah was off the rest of the day. Will would ask him a question and receive no response. Will would chant his name and go unacknowledged. Will would nudge him on the shoulder and Jonah would shake his head, trapped in his dream-like state from the library.

“Sorry,” he'd mutter. “Got distracted.”

Once was understandable. Twice was a stretch. Three times was concerning. He would have to breach the subject with care.

“Cotton’s a freak, isn't he?” Will asked. They were lounging in the hayloft of the barn, his chosen spot for the day. Jonah sat against the wall by the window; Will propped his legs up next to him, his upper body sprawled next to Jonah’s own legs. The books had been deposited in the house before they went up, so Jonah, for once, had nothing to do with his hands. It was cool and shaded, the peace interspersed by gusts that rippled the fields. A windy day.

Jonah pursed his lips. “What do you mean?”

“Exactly what I said.” Will turned his head and got an eyeful of blue jeans caked in mud and dirt. “I swear he's in love with you. He's obsessed.”

Jonah’s eyes drilled into him. “I'm the only student who plays the instruments he’s interested in. That’s it.”

“I’m kidding, Jo,” Will pushed to his elbows. “Is something going on with him?”

“I just said— ”

“I mean, like… I dunno… Is he breaking your fingers during practice?”

“Do my fingers look broken to you?”

Will sat up fully and grabbed Jonah’s hand, holding it up to his face. Jonah snatched it away and glared at him.

“There might be some underlying issues.”

“I’m fine.”

“Well, something’s going on— ”

“I’m fine, Will.”

Will shook his head stubbornly. “Not gonna work this time. Don’t think I haven’t noticed how off you’ve been.”

Jonah opened his mouth to protest, but Will prevented him from going on. “You barely talk to me about anything anymore, Jo! You won’t even tell me what’s going on with you and Luanne…”

“As if you would care,” Jonah said, somewhat bitter. “You don’t even like Luanne.”

“No— ”

“Yes. You’ve made that crystal clear.”

“I’ve grown past that, okay? I made my apologies. Don’t change the subject.”

“What? This is literally on topic— ”

“Shut up.”

“You shut up.”

Will pulled a face. “Listen, Jo, I just… I feel like I never know what's going on, or like…” He stopped for a moment, thinking. “Did I do something?”

“It’s not you,” Jonah sighed.

“So there is something.”

Jonah glanced at his lap and picked at his nails, jaw shifting to the right. Will caught on the movement—dragged down to Jonah's hands. His right was cocked at such an angle that Will could see the tail end of the scar on his thumb.

“Are we pointing fingers now?” Jonah asked.

“I guess.”

“Then you're not any better.”

Will gloured. “Huh?”

“You don't tell me about the stuff you're doing with your dad,” he elaborated. “Or why you're holed up in your house for hours.”

“That's…” Will started, thrown off-guard. He didn't think his absences had been so obvious. “Well, that's normal. That's where I live.”

“C’mon, Will. You’re never home unless it's for Grace.”

He shrugged. “Maybe we're just playing a lot of dress up. She's gotten really creative recently, you know.”

“Is she coaching you to become the next Miss America?”

“Think higher,” Will hummed. “More like the next Miss Universe.”

Jonah let out a dry laugh for the first time that week. Will smiled.

“What's the real reason?” Jonah pressed, and watched Will as if he could see the very color of his soul. Will considered his options. He’d prefer to keep Jonah untouched from the inner-workings of his parents’ business and tutelage; he was the only thing in Will's life that wasn't a by-product of his family or the life they led, and he wanted to keep it that way. But he wanted to be honest as well.

“I'll tell you…” he decided, shifting closer. “If you tell me what's bothering you first.”

Jonah’s grin sloughed away. He bit the inside of his cheek. “I don't think it's…”

He stopped and did not go on. Will noted, then, the incredibly short breadth of air dividing them, and how the pink of Jonah’s lips was slightly chapped—parted. His eyes flicked up to Jonah’s, and he did not increase the breadth of air.

Jonah’s breath came short. Back down to his lips.

“It's not what?” Will asked. Croaked.

“I don't want to talk about it.”

“It's not good to keep things to yourself, Jo.”

“You don't want to know.”

Will was not sure what demon had possessed him, but it had tied strings around his limbs and bound his voice box and drawn him even closer. Jonah's curls were so red.

“What are you doing?” Jonah asked, sounding faintly on the verge of strangulation.

“I don’t…” he struggled.

“Jonah! Will!”

Will had never moved so fast in his life. He sprang back, detaching himself completely from Jonah’s orbit. Jonah stiffened as Christopher crawled onto the hayloft, holding a mason jar with a monarch butterfly fluttering madly within its glass confines. He lifted the creature up, beaming. “Look what I found!”

“How many times have I told you not to climb the ladder with one hand?” Jonah reprimanded, getting up from the floor. When Christopher waved the jar triumphantly in Will’s face, it took every bit of strength in him to not fall through the floor.

Chapter Text

“We're negotiating a conservation easement for the Jackson lands. Gotta make sure they don't turn it into a theme park.”

Control appearances, Will wrote in his notepad.

“A Kansas investor’s offering to buy 10,000 out west. But the man’s slippery. Doesn't quite understand the value of the soil like we do.”

Don't trust outsiders? Know your terrain—literally and metaphorically.

“When your father was your age, he already knew how to read a deed blindfolded.”

You're behind.

Wayne poured him a finger of watered-down scotch in a heavy glass. Gave him old property ledgers to review. Handed him a blank topo map and ordered him to show where the ridgewater breaks. Will did so dutifully, without guessing. One of the men at the table smiled at Will—smirked, really—and took a drawn-out sip of his scotch. There were three of them in the Meridian’s lounge tonight, all staying at the lodge for a week of hunting and relaxation away from the “nagging” of their wives, as the smirking one had put earlier in his arrival. Samuel, if Will’s memory was to be trusted (it was not).

“Your boy at least knows his land,” he chuckled.

The one next to him sat up. Michael. He requested that Will show him where a property line would fall if his father subdivided the lodge's land into three lots with equal creek access (hypothetically). Will thought for a moment, then dragged imaginary lines across the stretch of green with his finger.

“Here,” he said stalely, and immediately went back to thinking of Jonah. He had not stopped thinking about Jonah for six days.

They bobbed their heads like fish.

“Your daddy take you out often?” Samuel asked. “My boy barely knows the layout of his own room… God forbid he knows what a tree looks like.”

“No, sir,” Will said after a moment, too lost in the jungle of his thoughts. He didn’t notice his father frowning.

“You go out by yourself, then?”

“Doesn't seem the safest to be in those woods by yourself,” the third man ruminated. Name forgotten.

What are you doing? Jonah had asked, a question Will could only answer with another question. What the hell had he been doing? “I hike there my friend.”

“Friend?” Samuel prompted. His smirk widened. “I see.”

Will blinked.

Samuel poured himself more scotch. “What’s her name?”

“Uh… Well, he’s not a—”

“It’s getting late, Will,” Wayne interjected. “You should rest.”

Will stood from the table, grateful for an excuse to leave. He placed his glass on a coaster (barely sipped) and murmured a polite goodnight. Laughter chased him, muted but sharp as he wandered slowly toward the stairs at the end of the hall. The cold of the floorboards drove up through his slippers. Three inches or hair. Red curls. What are you doing?

“Will.”

He stopped, halfway up the staircase and hand on the banister. His dad was behind him, entrenched in the dark of the hallway. Wayne stepped aside, motioning for Will to follow him.

“A moment.”

Reluctantly, Will came down.

They ended up in his dad’s walnut-paneled office, aged and glossy. Built-in bookshelves line one side, full of law tomes, timber yield reports, Missouri history, and a few leather-bound classics—Hemingway, Faulkner, the Bible. The space was heavy with the scent of leather and cigar smoke, though Wayne didn’t smoke as often as he had when Will was a child. Thick, forest-green curtains made the light dim. His dad sat under the glow of a Tiffany-style stained-glass lamp by his reading chair. Will stood uncertainly in front of him, feeling small despite being the one standing.

Silence stretched while Wayne fiddled with the glass he’d carried out of the study. “You did fine tonight,” he said at last, eyes fixed on the swirl. “Bit quiet, but they’ve seen worse.”

Will said nothing.

Wayne shifted his weight, studying his son like he was trying to unbury something. “You know,” he began. “I was your age when your grandfather first brought me into his study. He had a different way of teaching. Less… patient.” He gave a short breath that might’ve been a laugh. “Didn’t hand me maps and ledgers. Just took me outside and told me to come back when I could name every damn ridge between here and the mill road.”

Will half-smiled, unsure if he was supposed to respond.

“I figured I’d try something else with you.” Wayne paused. “Your mother wanted to raise you holed up in the house. Never liked it out there. It was a good idea to ignore her advice on that front. You know the land because you've grown up with it. I see that.”

A shuffle. “Yeah.”

Another pause. “Your mind was elsewhere, though.”

Will stared at him.

“You’ve been distracted lately. Is it about Marissa?”

“No.”

“You sure? I know that split wasn’t clean.”

“I’m sure.”

Wayne nodded, watching him. “Alright.” He sipped. “Someone else, then?”

Will’s jaw shifted. “Why are we talking about this?”

“Because I don’t want you walking into meetings like this with your head in the clouds. It’s unprofessional. You’re giving yourself a bad look.”

“Well… We were in pajamas…”

“Will.”

“Sorry. I’m not— ” Will cleared his throat. “I’m not distracted.”

Wayne looked at him for a long moment, unreadable. “So if I went and asked Jonah what’s been keeping you busy, he wouldn’t have any ideas?”

The breath was punched out of Will’s lungs. He tried not to flounder when he asked, “Why are you bringing up Jonah?”

Wayne’s gaze narrowed ever so slightly. He thumbed the rim of his glass. “No reason. He’s just the one you're always off doing God knows what with, so it would be logical to conclude that he has some sort of idea what's going on with you.”

“He wouldn't.”

“Hm?”

“Have any ideas. It doesn't have anything to do with him.”

His dad was unmoved. “Will,” he said, affecting the tone of a judge about to sentence a man to death and pretending at remorse to rub salt in the wound. “You know your mother and I aren't on the best of terms with the Henrises. They think we're the devil's spawn and honestly, I can't entirely blame them. Not after what happened to Paul.”

Will furrowed his brow. “Paul?”

“An old classmate of mine back in the day. Your grandfather allowed him to hunt on our land his senior year—had no idea he was planning on killing himself there. Most of the town thinks it was an accident.” He drummed his fingers on the armrest. “But Rodney’s convinced I had some sort of hand in it. It's almost… unnatural, how attached he is to the idea.”

“…Has he said that to you?”

Wayne smiled thinly. “He doesn't need to. Point is, son, the Henrises aren't the kind of people you want to get mixed up with. I know Jonah seems like a nice boy, but he's going to change over time. Those types always do—sometimes it’s simply God’s will. He'll become like his father—bitter, callous… A drunkard, maybe. Just like Rodney is on his way to becoming like own father. It's neverending. Best to distance yourself now than regret having kept him and his family around later on in life.”

Will gaped, wordless. Kind, God-fearing Jonah—who’d never sworn once in his life and prayed three times a day—becoming a bitter, callous drunkard? He’d never heard something so ridiculous. And Will wasn't fond of Rodney in the slightest, but even he could admit the man wasn't half as insane as he was being made out to be.

“Do you understand, Will?” Wayne asked.

A sudden, inexplicable anger filled him on behalf of Jonah and his family. This is what his parents always did: fabricate narratives to fit their vision of the world. Cast light on those who served a purpose and eclipse those they saw as a threat, even if that threat was of their own deluded design.

“Will?”

“I understand,” he said, blank.

“Good.” Wayne downed the last of his scotch and unfurled from his chair. Lamplight pooled in the crevices of his black robe as he clasped Will’s shoulder, grip tight and unwavering. “Keep that in mind next time you sneak off to see him.”

Will stood in the hallway, waiting for his dad to disappear back into the study once they'd left his office. Then he headed up the stairs, past the room of his parents and himself and his sister in his quest for the gloaming, sunlight-less sunroom. He picked his way to the phone by the chaise, lifted the receiver to his ear, and dialed the Henrises’ number.

Chapter Text

It took a bit (a lot) of convincing on Rodney's part, but Will finally got him on board with his plan: a five-day camping trip in the woods by the lodge, just him and Jonah. His own dad, surprisingly, was easier to convince. Edith had been stoutly against the idea when it was revealed at breakfast, touting about wolves and staring at Will like he'd grown not just a second head, but a third. Will gently but firmly rebuffed each of her protestations, at which point she looked helplessly at her husband. Wayne, however, did not rally to her defense. He studied Will so silently for so long that Will became intensely uncomfortable and wondered if he should have just left without asking and suffered the consequences later.

“Let him go,” Wayne said calmly, cutting into his sausage.

Edith’s jaw fell. A fourth head sprouted in the room and it didn't belong to Will. “Wayne— ”

“He’s old enough now to make his own decisions, Edith. He doesn't need us coddling him.” He glanced at Will. The temperature in the room dropped. “Sam and the rest of them will be leaving today, anyway. We don't have visitors lined up until next month. They can have the lodge all to themselves if that’s what they want.”

Will pressed his lips together, thanked them, and finished his food as quickly as he could, kissing Grace on the crown of her head and feeling his father's eyes bore into his back as he left. He packed a few essential belongings in a duffle bag and thought, of course, of Jonah. Tried not to think of him and failed miserably. Will still didn’t understand what had come over him while they were in the hayloft, but it had cast its shadow over the hangouts that came after. Most frustrating was how utterly unreadable Jonah was. His behavior toward Will hadn’t changed in the slightest, and as much as it drove Will mad trying to parse what was going through his head, he supposed he should be thankful that Jonah didn’t hate him. He hoped the entire incident would be forgotten about during their trip, and that things would return to the way they were before Will had been momentarily possessed by alien forces. He couldn’t even name what he’d nearly done, though he knew exactly what it was—what he might’ve had Christopher and his butterfly not interrupted.

What are you doing?

All he knew was that it was wrong.

Chapter Text

They took Rodney’s pickup and drove out to the lodge in the afternoon, swallowed by the maw of wilderness the further out they traveled. Jonah parked outside the lodge and traced Will’s footsteps up to one of the cabins nestled in the vast stretch of the forested property, drinking it in with hesitant awe. Will had chosen the fanciest of the small ones: two beds, a wood-burning stove, and a balcony overlooking the woods. They dropped off their bags and tumbled out—suddenly giddy with their newfound freedom—and hiked off the main trail in the direction of a nearby stream. Will splashed water at Jonah, Jonah splashed water at Will, and in less than ten minutes they were drenched and shoving each other back to the cabin, drying under patches of sunlight.

In the evening, Will used his Boy Scout skills to build a small fire ring with stones they found around the cabin and started an argument about how much marshmallows should be burnt (he liked his with a semi-crispy outside and a semi-soft inside; Jonah—the freak—liked his black). Jonah stabbed hot dogs onto metal skewers his mom packed for him, and across from one another they held the dogs over a paltry fire, letting them pink and redden and char. Jonah’s face shone over the flames—toothy from his smile—and Will attempted to recall the last time it'd taken on such a reckless shape. He couldn't.

Fireflies descended upon them after sunset—stars fallen to the ground. Trickles of smoke curled into a sky so dark it looked like an angel had knocked over an inkwell while writing a correspondence to God and spilled its black matter across the universe. The fire died down to orange coals. They dragged out their sleeping bags from the pickup bed and laid them side-by-side along the edge of the treeline, watching real stars (not just fireflies) poke holes in the thickening shroud. Jonah pointed out the constellations he knew and Will attempted to do the same. His knowledge didn't extend past the Big and Little Dipper, so he connected random shapes and came up with names for them, taking inspiration from some of their weirdest classmates (Julie, Charles, Raymond) and inside jokes he and Jonah had shared since they were in elementary school.

“You think we'll get eaten by bears?” he whispered.

Jonah was quiet. “Are there bears here?”

“I don't know.”

“What? How? You've been going here your entire life.”

“So? You've lived on a farm your entire life and somehow don't know how to lasso a cow.”

“I don't need to know how to lasso a cow. We barely have any cows to lasso. Besides… That's more of a ranch skill.”

“You have horses.”

“…Yeah? And?”

“You should enter a rodeo, Jo.”

‘Where’s this coming from?”

“The fact that you have horses, idiot. And I can just see you on a buckin’ bronc.”

“Your country accent is terrible.”

“According to whose standards? Yours? Yeah, right.” He snorted. “You don't even have one. Why are you so bad at being a cowboy?”

“Because I'm not a cowboy? This is the Mid west, not the Wild West.”

“Move to Texas after grad, then. That's the first step to becoming a cowboy. Second is entering a rodeo there and riding a buckin' bronc.”

“By myself?”

“No. Obviously not. You don’t get to go anywhere without me.”

“Okay.”

Will shot up. “Actually?”

“No, I just said that so you'd stop saying buckin' bronc.”

“Why?”

“It sounds… wrong.”

Will squinted his eyes at Jonah’s pants and slapped his leg with more force than intended.

“Dude?” Jonah inched away from him.

“Sorry. Mosquito.” He wiped bug blood on his shirt and swore when Jonah shoved him on the arm so hard he toppled sideways.

“Sorry,” Jonah drawled. “Mosquito.”

They chased each other around and tried landing hits for a good half-hour until the bugs got so bad that they were forced to find shelter in the cabin. Will started a second fire in the wood-burning stove and they sat on the animal pelt in front of it, talking for what must've been hours. Will did not remember falling asleep, nor waking up in the middle of the night and seeing Jonah still awake through his cracked eyelids, staring at the embers.

Chapter Text

The second day was the last normal one in Will's memory. They rose early and took a long, unmarked trail Jonah found on an old map in the cabin: steep, winding, and overgrown. Jonah took the lead, pushing hard. Will told him repeatedly to slow down, but his pace was relentless. He was the first to point out animal tracks and bird nest carcasses and a clearing of wild blackberries. Jonah—the fool—ate them without washing, and Will said he hoped he was wrong about them being blackberries and that Jonah would die of poisoning. These hopes intensified at the summit, when Jonah snapped a picture of Will at his sweatiest with Will’s Polaroid—an incredibly ugly picture that Will would later steal and try to rip up.  He’d be foiled by Jonah, who would tackle him from behind after another dinner of hot dogs and marshmallows sandwiched between graham crackers and slabs of Hershey's chocolate. They would retire to the cabin again, sleeping bags rolled out centimeters apart on the floor. Will would listen to Jonah's breathing and wonder if he had truly forgotten.

The third day was when things changed. There was no normalcy to be had from that night on. If Will could take it back, he would in less than the space of a heartbeat.

Chapter Text

It started raining and didn't stop. They were holed up in the cabin for hours. Will read about World War I in the kitchenette. Jonah paced, bemoaning how it was going to be muddy the rest of their trip. In the first half of the late hour (or what he believed to be the late hour; it'd been gray since morning and time indiscernible), Will found himself on the animal pelt, caressed by the warmth of the wood-burning stove. In the second half he found Jonah beside him, silent as the wood-smoke. He asked, “Why don't you believe in God, Will?”

The question came out of nowhere. “I do believe in God,” he replied. “Why?’

“You’re always doubting Him. I want to know why.”

“Well…” Will started, uncertain. “I don't see why He could allow— ”

“Bad things to happen?” Jonah finished. He dragged a hand over his face. “That's what it always seems to come down to.”

“I know you don’t believe that.”

“I don’t know what I believe anymore.”

“You’re the last person I’d expect to hear that from.”

“I know.”

The ends of Will’s mouth tugged down. “What’s going on, Jonah?”

Jonah didn’t answer for a time, eyes fixed on the stove as if it had said something only he could hear. The glow flickered in his irises. Will thought he looked impossibly far away—someone watching the memory of a fire, not the fire itself.

“I don’t know how to explain it,” Jonah murmured. “Nothing makes sense anymore. Everything I used to believe… It still makes sense to me, logically. But I'm confused all the time. It's so hard to accept, now.”

“You mean lately? Or… for a while?”

“For a while.” The rain thickened against the roof, a constant hush below the river of his voice. “I keep thinking about…” He shook his head. “Never mind.”

“Hey,” Will asserted, putting his book to the side. “Don’t do that. Just say it.”

“I can't.”

“Why not?”

“‘Cause it's…” Jonah paused. “Bad. I did something really bad, Will.” He was so serious. So drawn.

“Can't be worse than anything I've done.” Jonah’s definition of bad was taking a second too long to listen to your mother and skipping church because you were sick. Compared to Will, who was one of Sheriff Tate’s least favorite people in town, he was a candidate for sainthood.

“It is,” he refuted. “It would change things if you knew. You wouldn't look at me the same. I can't… I wouldn't be able to take that. I can barely even do it myself. Look at me the same.”

“That's impossible, Jo,” Will said, leaving no room for argument. “I'm offended you would think that.”

Jonah's grin at that was so small it could barely be seen. “Copying yourself?”

Will shrugged. “True then and true now.”

No answer. Will studied Jonah’s face in glances. The slope of his cheekbones. The softness in his mouth. “You're my best friend. Nothing would change that.”

“Even if I murdered someone?”

“Yeah.”

“If I robbed your parents?”

“Absolutely.”

“When we're leading different lives?”

“…What do you mean?”

Jonah didn't look at him. “That's just how it's going to go, Will,” he said, simple and inflectionless. “You’re gonna be busy these next few years, and… I guess all the years after, too. You'll have more important things to worry about. Thatcher things.”

“No, Jonah.” He was vehement. “You’re the more important thing. The only reason we wouldn't be friends anymore is if you keep talking like that.”

Jonah at least had the sense to look like he regretted what he'd said. “Sorry, it's just… Your parents… I know they don't like me.”

“I don't care. I could give a rat’s ass what they think. They don't like anything that isn't a dollar or a tree.”

“You should care, Will. It's— ”

“I don't want to talk about my parents.”

“But— ”

Will leaned over and kissed him before he could talk himself out of it. He really should have, considering how Jonah stiffened: a motion he realized further on in life when looking back on that moment. There were other things he hadn’t noticed, either, like how Jonah bit the inside of his cheek and turned his head away when Will eventually moved lower, trailing fire with his mouth. He was too distracted by the pounding of blood in his ears and the texture of Jonah’s lips, which were rougher than Marissa's and enticingly forbidden. What else was there to think of when they parted beneath Will's own? It was the smallest of slivers—hesitant in its break—but all the assurance he needed to push Jonah back onto the pelt. It didn't matter—not as the rain absolved them of consequence and the fire crackled its slow approval, amber tongues licking their secret from the air. Here it was: the damnation of things as they should’ve been. Eve taking the fruit of the serpent. David’s lust for Bathsheba. The relinquishment to sin. His only true rebellion.

Chapter Text

Will remembers no happier time in his life than the days that followed. Rousing to Jonah at his side, awake already and watching him unreadably. Stunned by the knowledge that if he kissed him, he would not be rejected.

Do you regret it ? he asked.

Jonah, the martyr, shaking his head. No.

Was it Jonah that he was seeking every time he reached for him in the descending months? Of course, he told himself whenever he thought of this question. Jonah was his greatest source of comfort, after all—the crux of a future he wanted more than anything. But beneath that answer lay a separate truth. Will desired not just Jonah, but the rupture he represented. The shiver in his spine when he met Jonah’s lips, yes, but also the thrill of doing what wasn’t allowed. He was not only bending the line, but breaking it entirely. He did not have to be Will Thatcher when they were together. Jonah was more than an amalgamation of things familiar and fascinating to Will: the stucco of his laugh and the tilt of his head and the way he hardly faltered when he spoke, even in moments of uncertainty. He was the door out, and Will was simply running his hand over every line and nick in the grain. He was a question without an answer and an order without an issue. A wound that did not ache if Will did not press on it. A flame he cupped with trembling hands even as it burned him, because it burned so beautifully.

Around others at school and in town, he kept his hands and words to himself. In his mind, though, he was forever in that cabin and those five days of June, where his laughter rang brightest. Even when Jonah’s face turned grave and his silences grew—when the light in his gaze waned—Will refused to stop. He did not listen to the murmur in his head that told him it wasn't right, or bother with the annoying puzzle of how they were supposed to fit together. Will had never been with a boy like this before and his experience in intimacy came from Marissa. He often felt frustration at the paradox of trying to determine who held which position in their relationship. Was he the “man” and Jonah the “woman?” Will was taller than Jonah by an inch and the louder, brasher one, but Jonah had better musculature and displayed no traditionally feminine qualities other than being soft-spoken and sentimental—he was probably more masculine than Will, traditionally speaking. He couldn't imagine Jonah making the same sounds as Marissa or turning to clay the way she had when they were together. He would press Jonah to a wall—indent his hips with his thumbs—and feel a niggling sensation that told him this was not how it was supposed to be. He then imagined their positions reversed—him against the wall and Jonah crowding him in—and it was so profoundly wrong that it made him lose his mind. Will tried abandoning the concept altogether; they were both men, after all, and trying to fit them into such roles was like trying to fit squares into circles. But doing so was near impossible, so he decided not to think of it at all. It was someone else's guilt being forced upon him—someone else’s formula of love that made no room for an answer as unequivocally perfect as Jonah.

In this formula, he did not factor in the way Jonah went stiff at his touch. It occurred to him many years in the future (far off, of course—never in the moment and never when it counted) that he was always the one leading, initiating, branding, and that most of the time Jonah was a doll, perfectly still. Other times he clung to Will in ways Will saw as passionate but were little more than painful in hindsight—nails digging into shoulders and kissing with too much force and digging his hands so sharply in Will’s hair that it felt like he might rip it out by accident. The only way he would respond in his hesitant, trying fashion was if Will approached him slowly and was obvious about his intentions, something he'd never had to do with Marissa. He didn't think too hard about it—squares and circles, after all. Jonah had always been different, and Will was happy to oblige by such differences. Can I kiss you? A nod. Is this alright? A nod. Tell me if you want me to stop and I will, I promise. A nod. Are you sure this is okay? It was this question that prompted the first and last time Jonah started a kiss. In reflection, Will would realize how awkward it’d been: Jonah’s lips unmoving and slanted at a crooked angle, arms like logs at his sides. But Will had been so happy that he’d quickly taken over, and the awkwardness was forgotten.

Was what they had blasphemy or a sacrament? He couldn’t decide. Both required faith. Both demanded the body. Will had learned from church pews and Sunday lessons that desire twisted the soul, but he swore his soul had never felt more alive than when he was with Jonah. It made him wonder if God watched them in curiosity—if even He could not untangle the difference between longing and liberation. What is love, he would ask himself, if not this? This hunger and gentleness—a trespass of flesh and fate. If it was wrong, then wrongness was soft and sweet and tasted like lakewater on Jonah’s skin. If it was wrong, then let the saints shut their eyes. Will would not apologize for being hungry.

Chapter Text

It was undone as quickly as it had become.

“Will! Just—Please, wait a moment— ” 

“I don’t want to talk, Mar,” he said flatly, stepping around her as he toweled off his face. Marissa trailed at his heel—as relentless as ever—and popped in his way just as he was about to enter the locker rooms, pouting as she hid her pompoms behind her back.

“Remember what it was like when we were king and queen and weren't together? Awkwardly dancing around each other the entire night?”

“No.” His memories of Homecoming week consisted mostly of Jonah, who he had sequestered on the empty football field and kissed in the grass till his lips were red and swollen. He didn’t recall any awkward dancing.

Marissa scowled, already losing patience with him. “You’re lying.”

“I’m not.”

“Ugh! We were so good together, Will! I remember you—I just…” She breathed heavily through her nose. “I miss you.”

Will flattened his mouth into a line, drinking in the shape of her face. He had never really known her. Jonah had been right about that, as usual.

“I've moved on, Marissa,” he said quietly, slipping into the locker room before she had a chance to respond. Cheers erupted around him over the blare of a boombox; the broad hands of his teammates resounded on his back. Tonight was their fourth win in a row. If they kept at this pace, they'd make it to the playoffs. They might even contend for a district or regional title. But such things couldn’t have been further from his mind. Will unstrapped his shoulder pads and peeled off his sweat-drenched jersey. Zoned out as Coach Pugh came in for his usual post-game talk and skipped the showers so he could sneak away, taping down fresh bruises and biting back a smile. Jonah would be there when he left, probably leaning against the wall as he scribbled in his composition book. Maybe tonight Will could persuade him to reveal its contents.

Jonah was indeed there, but so was Marissa. He had no notebook on him. He was looking at the ground, slightly to the side—face obscured by his hair and picking at his nails. Marissa was looking pointedly at the door with her arms crossed, red-cheeked and raging.

“Who?” she demanded upon Will’s exit.

Will halted. “What?”

“Who have you moved on with? What’s her name?”

“I’m not seeing anyone,” Will denied coldly. “And it’s none of your business if I am.”

“Half the girls around here are sluts,” she snapped. “You know that, right?”

Will stepped around her a second time, toward Jonah. “C’mon, Jo.”

Marissa spun around. “It’s true , Will. Just look at that Calloway girl!”

Jonah’s head snapped up at the name. Will went rigid. Marissa glanced between them, wine-red lips pursed. She tilted her head, feline-like and primed to shred.

“Huh,” she said. “I forgot Jojo has a crush on her.” A lie. Marissa never forgot something if she knew she could use it against the person to whom that particular truth belonged.

Jonah ignored the rib. “What about Luanne?”

Marissa smirked. Will felt a surge of anger. “Kimber said she saw her with a guy who was way older at the last game. You know… in a bit of a compromising position. It’s haunting Kimmy.” She sighed exaggeratedly. “He’s probably trying to get her knocked up or something. She’s asking for it, honestly.”

The look that came across Jonah’s face was a mix of such anger and devastation and confusion that it would be seared into Will’s memory.

“Jo— ”

“Don’t talk about her like that,” Jonah said, hard as stone.

“I’m only being truthful, Joney! I thought you liked that.” Her head swung the other way. “I’m surprised you’re not condemning her to the fiery pits of hell, to be completely honest. You can’t even touch a girl without acting like you’re both diseased.” She turned bitter. “You think you're a fucking saint, don't you? That you're better than the rest of us?”

Jonah’s jaw worked. His hands clenched. Something told Will that Jonah would crack—that he would swear and cuss her out and tell her exactly what he thought of her.

Instead, he became slack. His hands unclenched. His expression erased to a blank slate. He turned and wandered down the hall, swerving like a ghost. The shadows clawed at him, enmeshed with the hump of his own. Not a single world escaped his mouth. 

Will watched him go, rendered silent. Even Marissa seemed caught-off guard. She unwound when Jonah rounded the corner. Looked imploringly at Will, saying his name. But he had already taken off after Jonah.

Chapter Text

Will found Jonah in the music room, lured by the cry of a guitar. He was sitting on a stool in the corner, enshrined behind stacks of chairs with Cotton’s acoustic in his lap. Will let the door close softly behind him as he walked in, footsteps sharpened by the hard, thin flooring.

“Jonah?” he tried.

The guitar trilled—his only response. Will stood for a moment, watching his fingers spider along the strings before pulling up one of the unstacked chairs and sitting across from him. A measured, meandering melody settled across his shoulders and back, one he was unacquainted with. Jonah shifted seamlessly from mournful to elegiac. Remorseful to fevered. It told Will to surrender.

People liked to say that Jonah had been born with preternatural talent, the soul of an anguished artist given another chance at his craft. Oftentimes they were blind to his love for it—the passion he poured into each flex of his fingers and every note he immortalized on paper. When he played, Will saw in him what he lacked in himself: vitality beyond the exoskeleton of a body. Passion in its purest from. The difference between a boy who did not extend beyond the expectations of others and the one who dared to, again and again, and never asked for acknowledgement. Jonah was more vibrant than Will would ever be, and yet he was the one constantly overlooked. What Wayne and Edith Thatcher did not realize was that no color could erase him completely.

Jonah stopped abruptly. The guitar wailed. Died.

“We need to stop this,” he murmured.

Will didn't need to ask what he meant. He did, anyway.

“It’s wrong, Will,” Jonah continued, heedless of the way he was cutting open Will's chest. “You and me.”

“No, Jo, it's not. It's not wrong. I— ” Will was dry-mouthed. “If this about Marissa— ”

Jonah shook his head no.

“I don't want to stop.”

“I do.”

Incredulity hooked into him, raising Will from his chair. “Don't give me that. Don't lie to me.”

“I don't like to lie. You know that.” He traced the edge of the fretboard. “I’ve never wanted to be with you.”

A thousand questions bubbled in his brain. Accusations beyond a bedlam of pink, useless matter. “That’s not what it felt like yesterday.”

“Feelings are often deceiving.”

Will clenched his fists. “You can't fake it for that long. That's not possible.”

“I wasn't faking. I was…” He went quieter. His expression made it seem like the words were being ripped from his throat. “I was trying to learn to like it. I couldn't.”

The walls felt like they were closing in on Will. “So you thought you’d play around with me a while before tossing me away?” he demanded. “Is that what you did to Luanne?”

Jonah closed his eyes. “That's not… That's not it. I shouldn't have let it get this far. I shouldn’t have let it start at all. I'm sorry.”

Will couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Just yesterday, he had been sitting with Jonah under the bleachers, aligning their shared scars. Nothing had been wrong. It had all been right. “I don’t want a sorry, Jonah. I want you.”

“It’s wrong,” he said, a broken record.

“It’s not wrong.”

“It is.”

“I love you.”

Jonah blinked, absorbing his admission. “You’ve mistaken the kind of love it is.”

“You don’t get to tell me what I do or don’t know. You’re not me.”

“Tell me, then. What is it you love?”

“What? I— ” Will wavered. “Everything. Everything about you. You’re perfect. You’re my best friend. You’re…” He didn’t finish.

“Is it me, or the person you get to be when you’re with me?”

“I…” He faltered, torn. “Both. Why can’t it be both?”

“Alright, then,” Jonah allowed. “Both. That doesn’t make this right.”

“You love me, too,” Will said, desperate. “I know you do.”

“I’m not saying I don’t, Will. I do. But it's not in the way you want me to. It's not romantic. It never has been. This—what we’re doing—it’s a sin. Sexual sin. No matter how much…” He faltered. “How much you like it. It isn't any different from other transgressions. We weren’t meant for each other this way.” He fisted his hand, squeezing the thumb with his scar. “You're my brother. I've never seen you in any other light.”

“God,” Will repeated aimlessly. “Sin. Of course. This is about Him.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t give a shit what He thinks.”

“I do.”

“In the cabin— ” Will shoved his hands in his hair. “You said you’re confused all the time. That nothing makes sense anymore. What happened to that? Why can't you just give Him up? He doesn't want you, Jo—not like this. Not as much as I do.”

“It was my confusion that started this,” Jonah answered. “I was angry and bitter and… if I was already going down, I thought… if I was already ruined, I might as well burn the rest of the way. I turned my back on God because I felt— ” He cracked. “I felt so alone. I felt like He abandoned me and I couldn’t understand why because I was in all this pain—so much that I’ve sometimes thought I'd be better off dead.”

Will stared at him, anger fizzling into horror. “What? Jonah— ”

“Please, Will,” Jonah interrupted. “Listen.”

He bit his tongue. Somehow, he did as he was told.

“I was so lost,” Jonah continued. “And then you… You kissed me, and I wondered if I really was off in some way, like everyone thinks I am. They all seem to want something from me that I don't want to give—or see something in me that I don't see in myself—and if even you thought that, then maybe it was true. That I'm a prude, or that I think I'm a saint, or that I'm asking for it… So I let you, and I let you keep doing it, again and again. I just… I made the wrong choice, and all this time I’ve tried to convince myself that it was right, only to end up hurting us both. But that was never the case—God’s abandonment. He’s always been with me, even when… Even…” Jonah looked down at the guitar. “‘If I make my bed in Sheol,’” he recited. “‘You are there.’”

He paused, composing himself. He was unnervingly steady when he spoke again, like the words had been marinating in him for years. “When my dad is in pain, I'm the person he turns to to soothe it. He asks me to play for him and his nightmares go away. He’d never admit that, but that’s how it’s been for as long as I can remember. For me, Will, you've always been that person. You make my nightmares go away. You're my best friend. That's true now and it always will be. The love I have for you is strong, and it's strong because of God… He put you in my life. But that love doesn't come before Him—it’s an extension of Him. He does want me, Will. Both of us. There's never been a time He hasn't. He sees our sins and He loves us still, despite everything. He draws us back to Him. To keep going as we have is a continued rejection of that love. It's where we have to find comfort first, not each other.”

The lights flickered. It was dim in the room, cool and ripe to burst.

“…Asking for it?” Will asked, not trusting himself to say anything more. “Ruined? Jonah, what…”

He noticed, then, how exhausted Jonah looked, white as snow and shadows under his eyes. Felt the truth cauterizing in the air before it was unburied. Before he learned what Richard Cotton had done to Jonah Henris.