he first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was a noteT
from Mason on my bedside table.
Take an aspirin. Call you later.
I could feel the ache in my head the moment I sat up, my skin sticky beneath my nightgown from the humid morning air coming through the open window. I’d heard him get up at daybreak and I could smell the sharp scent of coffee, but I hadn’t been able to bring myself to go downstairs.
Was this how it would be? Mason taking care of me, sleeping on the sofa when I didn’t want to stay alone? Going to doctor’s appointments and coming by if I haven’t called? I loved Mason, but I didn’t want that life for either of us.
I stared into the bathroom mirror with the faucet running, the shadows beneath my eyes making me look like a hollow thing. The birthmark below my ear was darker against my skin, my pale lips almost invisible. The fleeting, lightning- quick thought struck before I could pull it back—was this how Susanna Rutherford felt before she threw herself over the falls?
I washed my face with ice-cold water and got dressed, holding tightly to the railing as I came down the stairs. The house was cast in the pink-tinged light of morning, the kitchen
tidied. The half-eaten blueberry pie was gone from the table, the crystal lowball glasses washed and drying next to the sink.
The digital clock above the stove top read 8:08 A.M. Mason would be in the fields by now.
I did as he said, taking the aspirin from the cabinet. Then I filled a glass with water and gulped it down, instantly regretting it. I still felt sick, but not from the whiskey. Last night and the string of clues I’d pieced together had changed things. I didn’t know how to explain it or how to prove it, but I was certain that all of this meant something. I could feel it.
Like the idea had sunk into my bones, becoming as real as I was.
Susanna Farrow didn’t just wander into the woods one day, following the breadcrumbs of her broken mind. And Gran wanted me to know it.
My stomach was still turning as my gaze drifted back to the doorway of the sitting room, where the maze of papers and photographs still blanketed the floor.
The window was propped open, most likely by Mason when it had gotten too hot in here last night. At the corner of the desk, the stacked copies of the newspaper articles I’d printed were fluttering in the breeze.
The house creaked against the wind outside as I crossed the kitchen, but I stopped short when I saw a shadow slip over the floorboards in the sitting room. It was followed by a sound.
Shuffling paper, maybe.
I came around the corner, eyes going wide when I saw Birdie sitting in the chair beside the fireplace. She had a pile of the pages she’d gathered up from the floor in her lap, a small rectangular photograph in her hands. She didn’t look at me as I stopped in the doorway. She was silent. In fact, she didn’t appear to be so much as breathing.
“What are you doing here?” I said, the tone of my voice almost defensive.
I was suddenly embarrassed. I thought I’d have hours before she got back from Charlotte, plenty of time to finish going through things and get the mess I’d made out of sight. What had she thought when she walked in to see all of this? What was she thinking right now?
I came closer, eyeing the photograph in her hand. It was the one Gran had sent me.
Birdie’s finger moved over the outline of Nathaniel’s wife, as if tracing her shape. “Couldn’t sleep, so figured I’d get on the road early.” Her voice was far and distant. When she finally looked up at me, there were tears in her eyes. Her gaze moved over the room before finding me again. “It’s finally started, hasn’t it?”
The buzz in the air turned electric as soon as she said it.
There was a knowing in her eyes.
“What?” My lips moved, but the movement felt numb. I could hardly hear myself speak.
She knew. She knew I was sick.
Maybe Mason had called her, or maybe walking in to see the chaos of the sitting room only confirmed the suspicions she already had. She’d been watching me so closely, especially over the last six months. I’d thought she was worried because of Gran, but that look she was giving me now was saying everything she wasn’t. It was finally out—this thing we’d all been tiptoeing around.
“I thought I’d be ready when the time came,” she said.
She stared down at the picture in her hand with an expression I couldn’t read. Nostalgia? Affection? Sadness?
When she turned it over, her eyes lingered on the inscription
longer than necessary. Was I imagining it, or were her hands shaking?
She swallowed. “But I don’t know that I am.”
I was trembling despite the warmth that filled the house.
Every muscle was jumping beneath my skin, my stomach twisting like I was about to fall, and keep falling.
“You’ve seen the door, haven’t you?”
The trembling stopped then. I felt a cold stillness bleed through me. “What?” This time, I did hear myself say it.
She stood, the photograph still pinched between her fingers.
“How many times have you seen it, June?”
I instinctively found the shape of the locket watch beneath my shirt, squeezing it so hard that its edges bit into my palm. I wasn’t sure anymore what we were talking about, and it didn’t matter how long I stared at her face, I still couldn’t read it.
“Why are you asking me that?” My voice was unsteady now.
She lifted a hand, reaching for the picture of my mother on the table beside her, but it stopped midair, like she was reluctant to touch it. Then it was almost as if she couldn’t help herself. All at once, it came to me. Whatever all of this was, whatever it meant, Birdie knew.
“She said you’d come asking questions.” She spoke softly.
I straightened. “Who?”
“Margaret.”
As soon as she spoke my grandmother’s name, a sinking feeling woke inside me. I was suddenly terrified of whatever Birdie was about to say. That warmth in her voice and that sparkle in her eyes looked different to me now, as if I could feel at my very center that what was about to happen would destroy everything.
Her mouth twisted, deepening the wrinkles on her face, and her eyes shined, taking on a shade of blue that was clearer and brighter.
“Who is the woman in that photo, Birdie?” I whispered.
Her eyes flitted up to meet mine, and she suddenly looked like a little girl to me. Like someone caught with something they shouldn’t have. “I have a feeling you’ve worked that out for yourself.”
“Who is it?” The words sharpened to a point.
“It’s Nathaniel Rutherford. And your mother.”
Susanna. My Susanna, I thought. But what did that even mean? There was never a time when my mother had truly been mine.
I shook my head. “That’s not possible.”
It was true. But wasn’t that the exact conclusion I’d already been coming to? Wasn’t that precisely the thought that had haunted me through the long, silent hours of the night? Now that she was saying it, I desperately wanted to be wrong.
“Just breathe, June.” Her hand was suddenly on my arm, her touch like ice.
I flinched, pulling away from her. “What is happening?”
“How much have you put together?”
Put together? Like I’d been sent on a scavenger hunt blindfolded. Like this was a game.
When I didn’t answer, she let out a heavy breath. “I know this is difficult, but I need you to listen to me. There’s a certain way this is supposed to happen.”
“What does that even mean?” I snapped.
“You’re starting to remember.” She searched my eyes.
“Right?”
Remember.
I stared at her, my mind twisting. My jaw clenched, biting back an answer. That was the wrong word for this.
I put more space between us, grasping at the last shreds of reality I could hold on to. The obvious answer was that this wasn’t real. It never was. The photograph, the marriage certificate, the baptism records, the gravestones…it was all one long hallucination playing out in my head. That was it.
Maybe I was still in my bedroom, tossing the unopened mail to the bed. There was a very real possibility that none of this was happening.
“This is…this is an ep-episode.” My words cracked as I said it. “This isn’t real.” I tried to reason with myself, begging my heart to calm. It felt like the world would go black at any second.
Birdie took me by the shoulders. “You’re not sick, honey.”
I felt myself still, the air in the room growing thin and dry. It burned in my chest when I drew it in.
“Now, tell me exactly. How many times have you seen the door?”
I blinked. “I don’t know. Three? Four times?”
Her eyes widened. “What?”
“The first time was about a year ago,” I rasped.
“A year ago?” She let me go, her voice rising. “That long?”
“I didn’t want to tell you and Gran. Not when Gran was so sick. I thought…”
Birdie pressed a hand to her mouth. She was paler now.
“That’s not how—” She swallowed. “This isn’t how it’s supposed to happen.”
“Birdie, tell me what’s going on.”
She crossed the room without another word, disappearing into the hallway. Her bedroom door creaked open, and I could hear a drawer opening and shutting. Then she was back, something pressed between her hands. It looked like another envelope.
“You’re not sick,” she said again. “You, Susanna, Margaret —further back, even.” Her words sped up, warping as I bit down on my lip painfully. “The Farrows are different. You know that. Some part of you has always known that, right?”
The pain radiating at my temples was spreading, my own heartbeat like the strike of a hammer in my ears.
“She didn’t disappear, did she? Susanna?” The words withered on my tongue.
“No. She didn’t.”
I looked around the room frantically, my hand finding the skin inside my forearm and pinching hard. I waited for the walls of the house to dissolve. For my eyes to wake to morning. But nothing happened. I was here, in our home, and I could feel the ground beneath my feet. I could hear the birds singing outside.
I pinched harder. “How long have you known about this?”
That childlike look returned to Birdie’s eyes. “A long time.”
“And what? You and Gran just decided to keep it from me?”
She looked down at the envelope in her hands before she held it out to me.
“What is that?”
“It’s something I’m supposed to give to you.”
I stared at it, eyes inspecting what I hadn’t seen before. It wasn’t one of the brown envelopes from the shop, like the one Gran had mailed to me. It was square and wrinkled with damp, the corners soft and worn.
When I didn’t take it, Birdie extended her hand further. “I give you this, and the rest is up to you. I can’t say anything else. I can’t interfere in any way.” Her tone wavered as tears filled her eyes. But her mouth was set in that straight line again.
“Tell me what’s going on!” I was furious now.
“I made a promise. One I’ve kept for a very long time. I’m not going to break it now. Not even for you.”
I looked at her for a long moment before I finally took the envelope. There was nothing written on it, but it was sealed.
Birdie took a step toward me, and I moved from her reach, headed for the door. I couldn’t be here. I couldn’t bear to hear what she’d say next.
I’d made it only a few steps before she caught hold of my wrist firmly, and she pulled me into her arms, not giving me a chance to push her away. She held me so tightly that it hurt.
“The next time you see the door, open it.” Her voice shook before she finally let me go, but she didn’t look at me. She walked straight past me, taking her purse from the hook by the door. Then she left, and it slammed behind her.
I stood there, frozen, as her car pulled down the drive. It was several seconds before I could even feel myself breathing.
I stared down at the envelope, hesitating before I tore it open.
Inside, there was another envelope, this one different. It had once been white, now stained with yellowed edges. I slid it free.
There was an address written on the front.
46 Hayward Gap Rd
I knew Hayward Gap Road the same way I knew every road in Jasper. I passed it every time I went to the farm, and I was sure that at some point, I’d driven it. There wasn’t a single
inch of this town that didn’t feel familiar to me, but I had no idea what made that address significant. Most of those farmlands were nothing but empty fields and the crumbling barns once used for drying tobacco. Looking closer, I realized this wasn’t Gran’s handwriting. This was a hurried, frantic script in smudged pencil. The fleeting, terrified thought that skipped through my mind was one that I couldn’t bear to consider. Could it be my mother’s?
I slid a shaking finger beneath the seal, and it opened easily.
My heart all but stopped beating as I reached inside, but my fingers didn’t find a letter or a photograph. There was something else. Something small and spindly. Fragile.
I slipped it out of the envelope, holding it to the light coming through the window. It was a perfectly pressed flower.
A stalk of bluebells. They grew wild all over Jasper each spring.
I held the blooms up to the light, turning them slowly. The petals had almost completely lost their color.
I searched the envelope, turning it upside down, but there was nothing else inside. When the flap fell closed, two words
stared up at me.
Trust me.
