The Rattled Bones(58)

“Sit.” Gram pats the narrow, worn step next to her, and I do, turning my back to the mysteries of the third floor.

“Did you hear?”

“I did.”

“I don’t know where it came from. It was like he’d been holding on to all this resentment and then just exploded.”

“Sounds like the truth.” Gram takes my hand. “Hearing distrust between two people is never easy. But I think he’s right, Rill. Ya two aren’t kids anymore. Maybe ya both needed to say the things that were said.”

“You think he needed to compare me to my mother?”

“No. That was unnecessary, and I’d bet on Reed realizing that right about now, if he hasn’t already.”

“Do you think he’s right? That I’m like her? That me leaving makes me like her?”

“Your mother left to protect ya, Rilla. She didn’t run away. The deepest love is a mother’s love, and your mother knew she couldn’t care for ya. She needed to get herself right first.”

“But she never came back.”

She strokes my hand. “Maybe that just wasn’t possible. Ya won’t find a thing on this earth more complicated than humans, and it’s not our place to judge one another. People have to deal with their particular complications the best way they know how, even when their actions hurt us most of all.”

“I don’t want you to ever think I’d leave you the way she left me.”

Gram coaxes my head to her shoulder. “I know ya will come home, Rilla. You’re my seal.”

“Do you think Dad trusted me to come home?”

“Your father trusted ya with his life.”

“Maybe he shouldn’t have.”

Gram pulls me from her, gets a good look at my eyes, which are watering now. “Why would ya go and say a thing like that?”

“Because I couldn’t save his life. If he’d trusted someone better, more reliable than me, then maybe he’d still be here.” The sadness of this truth fills my chest.

“That’s the last time you’re allowed to say that, Rilla Brae. And you’re not allowed to go on thinking it. Your father died because it was his time. He died at sea doing work that he loved and was still strong enough to do. Few men can say they’ve been gifted that privilege.”

“There’s no privilege in death.”

“Not in death, Rilla. But in living life the way ya want to live it. Keeping your heart filled with enough joy to share it with everyone ya meet.”

“I didn’t feel a lot of joy in Reed’s heart.”

“No.”

“How can he think that’s love? Wanting me to live a life he plans for me?”

“Reed hasn’t had a lot of good role models when it comes to love.”

She’s right. And I know that’s all I should be thinking about as she holds me to her warm shoulder, but I can’t stop seeing Reed escape through the window, stepping on the words carved into the wood in my bedroom. FIND ME. DONT GO! I burrow deeper against Gram. She hums a song under her breath. I recognize it as The Who, “Behind Blue Eyes.” I close my eyes to the whisper of her tune, so familiar, so Gram. In the dark space behind my lids I see words painted there. FIND ME. DONT GO!

Gram rocks me and the words become brighter, stronger.

Electric.

The words pound against my skull with their growing brightness, their electric taunt: FIND ME. DONT GO! Pulsing. Banging. Forcing pressure against my skull. I press my hand to my head to push back the searing pain.

Then the words change.

The letters morph into new shapes, the long sweeping sides rearranging themselves into something new, something different. They dart everywhere, a scramble in my mind. Until they reorder, settle into something new: IM HERE.

The words the girl whispered to me. I dart open my eyes and the hallway pierces with a shiver—a winter cold that stings the flesh of my cheeks with its bite. The cold wraps me, sending a chill into my bones, ice into my blood. I try to stand, to warm, but my legs collapse under me. I am on the floor, Gram bending over me. Her voice joins me, her words dull and distant, taking a long time to reach me. Are ya okay? Are ya okay? I want to tell her yes. I want to be okay. But I can’t speak.

The crack of the slamming attic door sends out a bolt of thunder. IM HERE scrawls upon the wood’s face in a yellow glow. The same blistering words pulse in my brain. How are they here? I reach up to touch the door, but Gram takes my hand and helps me to stand. She leads me to my room, stumbling. Because I can’t take my eyes from the attic, waiting for the girl to walk out. She’s here. I can feel her. Her cold breath. Her words. She is here with me and Gram, in this house.

Gram guides me to my bed, settles me down.

“Rilla. There is something not right.”

“Something’s not right.” It is the closest I come to telling Gram the truth before my mind swirls with light, as if I stood too fast. The whole room swims with a scorching gold. It pulls at me, around me. Beats of sizzling light. Embers. The light is fire, singeing the air in my room with crackling whistles, popping embers from a blaze. The sparks zip past me, around Gram. I squeeze her hand, needing to keep her safe. She calls to me from a distant place, but I’m so far away. I’m in a room of flame. I let go of my gram. I reach for a spark, capture it in my hand. The fire is a burning cold. The ember squirms in my palm, morphs into IM HERE. These two words scrawl across my skin as my room pops with the crackling fire, the flames lighting the room orange.