t was from Susanna. It had to be.I
I pushed out the screen door and went down the steps with the envelope still clutched in my fist. The GPS on my phone said that 46 Hayward Gap Road was only twelve minutes away, not far from the farm. From the map, I could see that two corners of the properties actually touched on the farm’s northeast side.
The Bronco’s engine roared to life, and I already had the truck in reverse when Ida came out onto her porch. She lifted a hand in a wave, and for once, that concern was missing in her expression. As if seeing me go off to work like I did on any given normal day was reassuring. Like maybe I was okay.
But I wasn’t. I wouldn’t ever be again.
A faint, static buzz flickered from the broken speakers as the road bent and stretched before me. I let my foot fall heavier on the gas pedal. I was headed east, where the hills started to flatten just a little and the trees that lined the road spread apart. Sunlight sparkled on the dew-spotted grass, where wide, flat blooms of water hemlock swayed in the wind along the roadside ditches.
Gran had had thirty-four years. Thirty-four years to tell me what happened to my mother. But she’d let my life pass with
the unknowing and the only one Gran had trusted with the truth was Birdie.
It made sense now. This was why she’d never wanted to talk about Susanna. Why she’d never seemed haunted by the mystery of her disappearance, the way any other mother would be. I’d always taken it as grief, like maybe she couldn’t bear to think about what had happened. But all this time, she’d known Susanna was in the past, safe and sound. She’d lived a life and died in Jasper. She just hadn’t taken me with her.
I stared at the envelope in my lap, those two words like a
beacon in the dark.
Trust me.
The turn onto Hayward Gap Road was marked with a makeshift scrap of wood. I slowed down, checking the GPS when I spotted it. The edge of the property I was looking for was at the turn, but the hill in the distance hid whatever was waiting there. The truck rocked over the deep, rain-filled potholes as the pavement gave way to gravel. But it took only a few seconds for me to spot a stone chimney ahead.
The rest of the structure came into view a few seconds later, and my fingers gripped the steering wheel tighter, as if I were bracing myself for something. I couldn’t shake that feeling, like every soft thing in my body was turning to stone.
It was an old farmhouse.
The shingled roof was caved in on one side, the rotting wooden siding almost completely gray where the white paint had chipped off. A small porch that wrapped around one side was still standing, but the house clearly hadn’t been lived in for a very long time.
I pulled onto the shoulder when I reached it, sliding the gear into park. There was nothing but tall grass in every direction, spanning a dozen acres at least. What had once been a barn to
the south was now just a couple of beams left standing and a pile of wood overtaken by blackberry vines. The skeleton of an old tractor was buried in a thicket of hedges by the road.
The metal was rusted over, but the manufacturer’s name was still faintly visible on the side.
I couldn’t remember ever stopping here or stepping past that fence, but there was a nagging, prodding feeling that I knew this place. I’d been here before, hadn’t I?
I opened the door, getting out of the truck as I studied the land. The view of the mountains from here was a perfect one, with rows upon rows of misty blue peaks reaching far into the distance. The river wasn’t far, either. I could hear it behind the tree line that wandered along the property, but this was upstream from town, an area we’d never really ventured to as kids.
I stepped over one of the fallen fence posts, letting one hand touch the tops of the reeds as I walked toward the house. Most of the glass windows were gone or cracked, and the screen door was crooked. It looked like one of the hundreds of farms that dotted the expanse of the Blue Ridge Mountains, but there was something strange about the place. Something almost frightening. The prick that danced on the back of my neck made me feel like someone was watching me from those hazy, broken windows.
In the time it had taken me to get here, I’d all but convinced myself that this was the key. Like this last clue would be the thing that clicked the pieces into that pattern I was searching for. But I couldn’t see it. Instead, I was filled with a feeling I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It was like hearing a sound and being unable to tell which direction it was coming from.
The clouds rolling in brought a swift wind with them, and the grass bent all around me, making a whispering sound that made my skin crawl. The soft tingle of something moving
below my wrist tugged at my mind and I looked down, going rigid. A wide-winged silk moth had landed on the back of my arm, its size stretching wider than my open hand. It was the same as the ones we found clinging to tree trunks in the woods when we were kids, its brown wings swirled with red markings that resembled two sets of eyes.
I lifted my arm carefully, watching in a kind of awe as the moth’s black legs climbed to the tip of my finger. There it sat, giant wings opening and closing in a silent rhythm.
I could tell by the pooling warmth spreading in my chest that it wasn’t real. I was seeing something that wasn’t there.
But for once, I forced myself to stand still, pressing into the vision instead of driving it from my mind the way I usually did. I’d always run from it, but now I was leaning in to that feeling, making the sense of familiarity widen inside of me. I could almost touch the thought, as if my mind were reaching into the air for it. But slowly. Carefully.
I blinked.
Behind me, I could feel the crumbling house and the gray sky. I could sense the cooler air and the empty road. But there, in front of me, was another world. The hills were greener, the sky bluer. And the fields—they weren’t empty anymore. Rows upon rows of tobacco covered the earth, the wide flat leaves like a sea of green.
I could feel the vision pulling at me, like I was teetering with one foot in this moment and one in another. Like I was standing in two places at once.
When I looked down to my finger, the moth was suddenly gone, and with it, the view of the tobacco field began to disintegrate. In a matter of seconds, it had vanished, replaced by the abandoned farm that surrounded me.
A tight breath escaped my lips as I stumbled back to the truck, my hand clumsily reaching behind me for the door
handle. I hit the gas, but I couldn’t tear my gaze away from the sinking porch that encircled the house. The chimney. The crooked front door.
A bead of sweat trailed down the center of my back, and I rolled down the window, trying to wash that scent from the cab. The sweet, berry-ripe, wood-rotting smell that swirled around me. I drank in the wind, the speedometer climbing until I was finally able to breathe. And when I got up the nerve to glance in the rearview mirror one more time, the house had disappeared behind the hill.
The truck slid to a stop when I reached the river road and I stared into the empty field on the other side, still breathing too hard. What happened back there—that vision—was different from the episodes that filled my notebook. What had Birdie asked me? If I was remembering? That’s exactly how it had felt. Like opening a hole in my mind that held something I’d forgotten. But what?
I glanced to the left, where downtown Jasper lay beyond the hills. I didn’t care what promises Birdie had made or how things were supposed to happen. She was going to tell me what I needed to know. Right now.
I turned the wheel in the opposite direction, headed for the farm. The urge I had to call Mason was so strong that I had to will myself not to reach for my phone sitting in the passenger seat. What would I even tell him? How could I ever explain this? The person I should really be calling was Dr. Jennings.
There wasn’t a single moment that had made sense since I’d opened that envelope from Gran, and the image that kept replaying in my mind was of Susanna. Not the woman in the photo or the one in my files in the basement. It was what I imagined she had looked like that night, walking barefoot on that road in the middle of a snowstorm. Lost and confused, just like I was now. I could almost see her up ahead, trailing the
edge of the road in her damp nightgown, skin drained of color in the cold. A drifting figure in a sea of white.
I swallowed down the nauseous feeling climbing up my throat. Was it Susanna I imagined there on the side of the road, or was it me?
The road curved sharply, and my fingers loosened on the wheel when I caught sight of something flashing into view through the driver’s side window. Just as quickly as it appeared, it vanished behind me. I slammed on the brakes, tires screeching on the blacktop as the truck came to a jerking stop.
I watched as the smoke from the tires drifted past the windshield, and I took three deep breaths before I dared to look in the rearview mirror.
I hadn’t imagined it. It was the door. The red door.
The very same one I’d seen in the cemetery. At the farm. On Main Street. The same brass handle. The same chipping paint.
It stood erect in the middle of the field, a blot of crimson against the rolling green hills.
I got out, a floating feeling settling over me as I walked slowly toward the trees. The truck rumbled behind me, and the sound of the wind swallowed up the silence, reverberating in every cell of my body. The scent of burning rubber still stung my nose as I waded into the tall grass.
“It’s not real,” I whispered, out of habit more than anything.
The words were a knee-jerk reaction, but they weren’t true anymore. They never had been.
I was breathing so hard now that my lungs hurt. At any moment, I was going to wake, I told myself. I was going to open my eyes in my own bed and realize that none of this had ever happened. But the thought was followed immediately by another. That I had to see what was on the other side.
I stopped when I reached it, boots sinking into the rain- softened soil.
Open it, Birdie’s voice echoed.
I looked up and down the empty road, eyes lifting to scan the trees in the distance. There was no one to see me standing in that field in front of a door that wasn’t there. No one to bear witness to my madness.
Before I could change my mind, I reached out, fingertips tingling when they touched the scalloped doorknob. My hand curled around it, and I heard myself exhale before it turned.
With a shaking, terrified breath, I pushed it open.
My eyes widened as the hinges creaked and the door drifted away from me.
On the other side was another field. Beyond it, a blacktop road was carved into the earth against a thick tree line. I could hear the cicadas. The water in the creek.
Again, I looked behind me to the truck parked with the door ajar down the road. The cool metal of the doorknob was still there on my fingers. But I froze when I heard the sound of wind in the trees, the leaves rustling. Because I couldn’t feel it.
Carefully, my gaze returned to the open door. On the other side, the branches were bowed, the grass bending beneath a swift breeze. But on this side, all was still.
I lifted a hand slowly, moving closer, and when it crossed the threshold, a brisk wind wove through my fingers. My lips parted in an overwhelming awe as I closed it into a fist and drew it back. As soon as I did, the wind disappeared.
I stared at my palm, my gaze following the lines that spread like tree roots over my skin.
Two places at once.
It was Gran’s voice I heard as I counted the inhale. One, two, three. I took a step forward, exhaling a shaky breath. One, two, three. I don’t think there was a moment when I made up my mind. There was no single thought that made me do it. I was just suddenly moving forward until my boot was touching down on that glistening grass.
The wind caught me, pulling my hair across my face, and I filled my chest with the summer-sweet air. Dragonflies danced on the sparkling water below.
But when I turned around, the door was gone.
