A History of Wild Places(25)

My legs wade up toward the shore, feet sinking into the mud, and I see Travis’s head flick toward the window, as if to see if I’m close, if I might walk through the screen door and catch them.

The meadow grass pricks the soles of my feet, the air is slightly cool against my flesh, pond water dripping from my hair down my back, but I turn my ear toward the farmhouse, straining to hear. A knot tightens in my stomach. They’re much too far away for me to hear the words being muttered between them.

But it doesn’t feel right, the clandestine way Theo leans close to Bee, his eyes flashing to the window.

Some secret thing is being shared between them.

Words meant only for their ears.





BEE


“He was here,” I whisper, standing at the kitchen counter, my chin tilted upward. Theo, my brother-in-law, is a tall man and I don’t want to speak to his chest, his throat, so I lift my face, hoping my clouded eyes have met with his.

Maybe I’m stupid to be this close to a man who went over the boundary and into the trees. But when I calm my own breathing and listen again to the slow cascade of blood through his veins, at his temples, his throat, it still sounds clean, unfettered. No illness streaming through him.

“Who?” Theo asks, swiveling to face me, a tremor of something in his voice. My sister is still out in the pond, floating in the cool water. Theo and I are alone in the house.

Still, I speak softly so only he will hear.

“The name you said earlier when you were arguing with Calla.”

“We weren’t arguing,” he replies quickly, as if I’m the younger sister he must pacify, prove that he is being a good husband—a man who never raises his voice.

“I don’t care about that,” I say, my ears trained to the open window for sounds of Calla walking through the field from the pond. But it’s quiet, too quiet. Only a lazy breeze tickling the tips of the alpine meadow grass. “Travis Wren,” I say softly. “The truck you found.”

Theo’s breathing changes and I think he even leans in close, his skin radiating heat. “What about it?”

“I think he was here, Travis Wren, in the house. He was in the sunroom at the back.”

A wind brushes through the screen door and with it comes the sound of Calla rising from the pond, water dripping from her skin onto the blades of grass at her feet. It’s far off, but I can hear her movements. “Why do you say that?” he asks.

“I remember him.”

Theo makes a strange sound, a clearing of his throat, like he doesn’t believe me. “When was he here?”

Calla is moving toward the house now, getting closer.

“A year ago, maybe. Could have been longer.”

Theo swallows, and his voice dips low, like he too doesn’t want Calla to catch us talking. “How could he have been in the sunroom? We would have known.” His words trail away like he’s looking to the door.

I shake my head, my own sightless eyes flicking to the back door, knowing Calla is close. Quickly. Quickly. Her pace is almost a run. “I don’t know,” I answer.

A second passes. Calla is almost to the back porch, her footsteps loud against the earth. I think Theo must see her because I hear him stiffen, shifting something away that was in his hand—the photograph maybe. He’s tucked it into a pocket so Calla won’t see. “Why are you telling me this?” he asks. What he means is: why am I telling him and not my own sister.

“Because I knew you would believe me. And she wouldn’t.” I swallow down the guilt and take another step back, toward the living room. “She doesn’t want to know about anything out there.” I nod toward the front of the house, the road, the gate in the distance and the forest beyond that. “But you do.” I touch the stair railing, my heart climbing up my windpipe, scraping me open.

He might nod, but he doesn’t get a chance to speak, because the screen door swings open and the scent of my sister, of green-golden lemons and silty pondwater, enters the house in a burst of fragrance and wind. I turn and hurry up the stairs before my face can give anything away.

“What are you doing?” I hear my sister ask Theo, her voice a coil drawn tight.

The faucet turns on at the kitchen sink, the clank of old pipes, of water rising up from the well before it splashes into the basin. “Washing my hands,” Theo answers—the lie oddly believable.

“Where’s Bee?” Her voice is strained, a scratch at the back of the throat, unusual for her. She knows something’s wrong. Maybe she saw me talking to Theo, or she just senses it—when you live in a house with three people, secrets are rarely kept for long, everything is found out eventually.

“Upstairs, I think,” Theo answers, his tone perfectly dull, a man who is only half listening to her line of questions. A man who is used to lying.

Calla blows out a breath and moves across the house, across the living room rug that mutes her footsteps, until she reaches the stairwell. I sink back into my bedroom before she can see me. Another moment passes and then her voice echoes back across the house, directed at Theo, “Tonight’s the gathering.”

The water in the kitchen sink turns off. “I know,” he answers. Voice still flat, insipid. Maybe even a little annoyed.

The gathering. Tonight we will walk to the center of Pastoral.