M. Hanover - Graveyard Child

Which was what made it scary.

Ex pushed into the station, brushing corn snow out of his long, pale hair. I more than half expected the guy behind the counter to give him the hairy eye, but instead he lifted his chin to Ex and said, “Peace be wit’cha.”

“And also with you,” Ex answered, and headed over to our dingy little table. “Snow’s getting thicker.”

“Think we’ll have a problem getting through?”

He sat across from me, scowling.

“Don’t think so,” he said. “The new car looks pretty weather ready. And we’re on a major highway. It’s not like we’re going between Taos and Questa again, and you handled that just fine.”

“Yeah,” I said, surprised by the prick of regret. Some part of me had been hoping the roads might close. We might all be forced off into some Bates Motel–looking dive where I could put off the trip for a few days. Until after New Year’s. Possibly forever. Forever would be good. Ex took a bite from his sandwich and nodded toward mine.

“Not hungry?”

“Guess not,” I said.

“Get it wrapped up, then,” he said. “You might want it later.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. Ex could be weirdly paternalistic, but as long as I was the one signing his paychecks, I didn’t mind. Not too much. I found myself secretly pleased that we hadn’t fallen into bed together before. It was going to be hard enough introducing them to my parents as it was. Mom. Dad. These are my friends. They’re both men, and we go everywhere unchaperoned. The nice one’s the ex–heroin addict, and the grumpy one used to be a Catholic priest. Never mind. I might as well have slept with him.

I couldn’t help it. I laughed. Ex’s scowl deepened, and he shot a glance at Chogyi Jake.

“Just thinking,” I said. “It took me years to get away from Wichita, and it’s a ten-hour drive back.”

“Life’s strange that way,” Ex agreed.

Ozzie looked out from the SUV, her dark eyes nervous and her breath fogging the windshield.

WE WERE only a few days past the winter solstice, so darkness came on early. Ex took his turn driving, and I took the backseat with Ozzie, letting my head rest against the metal of the doorframe. Ex got to change the music, so we were listening to some old jazz numbers he liked, and I closed my eyes for a minute. Just to rest them.

In the dream, I was in the desert. It was the same place I’d been a thousand times before, though now the bare landscape had scars and scorch marks. She was with me, the other Jayné. Most of my life, I hadn’t known what she was, only that sometimes I would dream that there were two of me. Now I could see the lines in her skin where the plates of the mask met. Her eyes were still like mine, though. Her hands were folded in her lap, and mine were too and they were the same hands. Far above us, two suns burned in the limitless sky. One of them pressed down heat and light, but the other, paler one radiated purification.

You will outgrow me, one of us said, but I didn’t know which, and the thought left me sad and elated. I had the sense that this was what going away from home was supposed to be like. Sorrowful and exciting, terrifying and grand. You will outgrow me, and so we should be ready.

“Jayné?”

I opened my eyes, disoriented for a moment. We were on a two-lane road. Not the highway.

“Jayné,” Ex said again, “what’s the place we’re staying?”

“Best Western,” I said. “They take pets.”

“And it’s on Fifty-Third.”

“Yes,” I said, leaning forward. “What’s the matter?”

“I can’t find it,” he said, “and there’s nothing here . Seriously, I think someone stole your city.”

I blinked. We’d outrun the clouds and the snow, and dark fields opened on either side of us, unfolding forever. It was unreal because it was familiar.

“That up ahead on the right?” Chogyi Jake said, his voice uncertain.

“No, that’s Heights. It’s a high school. You went the wrong way off I-35. You have to turn around. It’s right by the exit there.”

“Thank God for the native guide,” Ex said, pulling over to the shoulder and waiting for an oncoming truck to pass. I leaned back. I’d known a kid who went to Heights. Jimmy Masterson. He’d had a high forehead, he’d asked a friend of mine to homecoming, and he hadn’t even crossed my mind in years. Ozzie chuffed as Ex made the turn. I put my hand on the dog’s side.

“Well, Toto,” I said. “We’re in Kansas.”

In the morning I took Ozzie for a walk in the freezing brown of December, the leash in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. The steam from the coffee was like my breath. The chill left my face feeling tight and expressionless. I wasn’t looking forward to the day. Ozzie did her best to ignore the leash, pulling me along when there was something interesting to sniff at, and standing like a rock when I was trying to move her along. I couldn’t complain about it too much. She’d lived a long time without anyone telling her what to do, and in her place I probably would have done the same.

When I got back to the hotel, Ex and Chogyi Jake were at the Country Kitchen. Ex was on his way through a plate of bacon and eggs with a cup of acid-smelling coffee. Chogyi Jake was eating yoghurt and drinking tea. I plopped down beside Ex and caught the waiter’s eye. He nodded that he’d bring me a menu in just a second. It was a lot of information in a small gesture, and I wondered if it was a local idiom, or something I’d been seeing and doing all across the world. It was so small, so automatic, that I couldn’t remember.

“Where’s Ozzie?” Ex asked.

“I put her in the room.”

“Not the car?”

“Cold,” I said. “Besides, Mom doesn’t like dogs in the house. They shed.”

The waiter swung by, dropping off the promised menu. It took only a couple seconds to realize I didn’t want anything. I folded my hands on the table and quietly willed the guys to finish. A vague nausea floated at the back of my throat, and the smell of bacon wasn’t helping.

“So what’s the plan?” Ex asked.

“Go home,” I said. “Talk. See what we can find out about Eric. Jay’s going to be doing some wedding preparations still, and I’m hoping that we can use that to put people at ease.”

“You sure you want us horning in?”

“I don’t see an option. Besides, they’re going to be pretty damn curious about all of us. Won’t be hard to start conversations.”

“I think what Ex is asking is whether this is a private moment, or if you want us there with you?” Chogyi Jake said, then ate the last of his yoghurt. I coughed out something close to a laugh.

“Are you kidding? I can’t do this alone.”

“Just thought we should check,” Ex said. He sounded a little petulant. I had the momentary urge to put my hand on his, to reassure him. I’d spent weeks traveling with him, just the two of us together. I didn’t know if the distance I felt in him now was from being back with other people or if he was still grieving for Father Chapin, his old mentor who’d died in my arms less than a month before. Or if he still thought of me as an innocent woman possessed by a demonic force from which he had to save me. Whatever it was, I didn’t put my hand on his, and if he noticed, I couldn’t tell.

The waiter came, and I settled the bill. Twenty minutes later I was turning the SUV down the familiar streets, my breath shallow and my brain spinning. There was Mr. and Mrs. Mogen’s place, but the old green truck he’d driven had been replaced by a red Impala. A younger man’s car. I wondered what had happened. We passed Carol McKee’s house, where I’d gone for Wednesday Bible study from the time I was twelve until I was sixteen. I was driving down two different streets; the one I saw with single-story houses with no fences to divide the yards, one-car garages built back when cars must have been about a foot thinner, and then I was also going down my street where I’d always been. Where I belonged.