FOR THE THIRD day in a row, the dawn was overcast and gray and chillier than midsummer ought to be. Sorrow wrapped herself in a sweater and took her tea out to the back porch. She was the first one up. She had awoken slumped on her bedroom floor, stiff all over from sleeping curled up by the door. If she had dreamed, she didn’t remember it, and every time her mind turned toward what memories might still be hiding in the maze of her muddled brain, she felt so tired she wanted to give up thinking about it at all.
She had told herself, when she first began to remember, that it would be like piecing together a puzzle. Once she found enough pieces, once she fit together the corners and edges, the rest would fall into place, and for the first time she would have a complete picture of everything she had been missing.
She remembered the day before Patience had died. She remembered the night of the fire. She remembered how cold it had been. She remembered watching through her bedroom window as snowflakes whirled down in the blue and white lights of the sheriff’s car.
She remembered burying Patience in the ash grove.
Verity at the graveside with a doctor behind her.
Leaving with her father and not knowing if she would ever return.
She didn’t remember what had happened in between.
Your mother is sick. Your mother isn’t well. Your mother is going away for a while. That was what Sorrow remembered, but none of it came from her own memories, only from the explanations and excuses others had offered over the years. Verity had always been depressed, off and on, for as long as Sorrow could remember, and she was fairly certain there had never been any kind of treatment before Patience died. That had been the breaking point. During those few weeks between Patience’s death and Sorrow leaving for Florida, something had happened that had pushed Verity and Grandma and Dad to all agree that Sorrow could no longer live in the only home she had ever known.
She had asked, once, a few years ago. Dad had only said: Your mother had a breakdown.
What a useless word, breakdown, so big and so small all at once, meaning nothing and everything, no more than a way to avoid the truth. But at the time she had accepted it. It had all seemed so very far away, not her own life and her own memories anymore, but somebody else’s, the history of some poor little girl and her sad family tragedies.
She heard Grandma moving around in the kitchen. The light was changing, the orchard’s shades of gray sliding into dreary green, and the trees were emerging from the misty darkness as distinct shapes. Somewhere behind the clouds the sun was rising. Sorrow didn’t want the day to start yet. She wasn’t ready for more hours of worrying about whether Verity was coming downstairs, whether she should go fetch her, whether Grandma was paying enough attention, if it was even fair to expect Grandma to do more, if this was normal, if this was wrong, and why she didn’t know any of those things. How she could be sixteen years old and not have the slightest idea how to ask if her mother was okay.
Her tea had grown lukewarm when she heard a car coming up the driveway. She tensed, then relaxed. It was too early for the police, and she recognized the grumble of Ethan’s Jeep. He came around the corner of the house a minute or so later. He was dressed in his grass-stained work clothes, and his Red Sox hat was jammed into the back pocket of his jeans. He looked younger without it, his hair uncombed, his expression uncertain.
Sorrow slid a few inches to the left to make room on the step. “Hi,” she said.
“Hey.” Ethan sat down beside her.
She took a sip of her tea. “We meant to call you yesterday.”
Sorrow said we, but in truth she had considered it, then forgotten, and Verity had never mentioned it at all. It should have been Verity to suggest it in the first place. She was the one who liked Ethan so much she wished he were a Lovegood rather than an Abrams. Sorrow barely knew him; she wasn’t even sure if they were friends.
But his cousin had died, and she should have called.
“It’s fine,” Ethan said. “Things have been . . . I don’t even know. So messed up.”
“How are you doing?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Ethan said. “I know I’m here early, but I had to get out of the house. Mom is all over the place because she can’t decide if she’s supposed to be helping or not, because she can’t stand talking to Aunt Hannah and Uncle Paul anymore, but this is Julie, and Julie was never the problem, and . . . Two days of listening to her go around and around and I, uh, I told her you guys needed help today.”
“That’s okay,” Sorrow said. “You can use us as an excuse anytime.”
“I just can’t . . . Part of me keeps thinking, I can’t believe she did this, but part of me isn’t surprised at all. That’s an awful thing to think, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know,” Sorrow said.
“She tried before,” Ethan said. “When she was in high school. At least once that I know of. She was away at boarding school, and she—I think she got drunk and climbed up on a school building or something. I was just a kid, nobody told me anything. But I remember how she came home in the middle of the school year and nobody would talk about why.”
The school counselors decided I needed a break. That was how Julie had described it that day in the café.
“But I thought they got her help,” Ethan said. “I thought, after that . . . I thought they got her help.”
“I don’t think it always works that way.”
“I don’t even know if there were other times after that.”
Other times, he said, like they could have been talking about anything. Julie had tried to commit suicide as a teenager, had succeeded eight years later, and the space between was filled with unknowns and euphemisms, careful avoidances and awkward silences, all the ways people had of talking around a thing they were too afraid to face.
“She mentioned that when I talked to her,” Sorrow said.
“She did?”
“Well, not really. She just said she was sent home from school. She didn’t say why. She and Patience became friends for a little while after that.” Sorrow turned her tea mug in her hands. “The sheriff asked me if I knew why Julie picked—why she went to the cider house.”
“I didn’t know they were friends,” Ethan said.
“I’d kinda forgotten about it, until recently. I don’t think anybody was supposed to know,” Sorrow said. “It was a secret. They weren’t even allowed to talk to each other. But you know it was . . .” Her voice caught, and she breathed for a moment to steady herself. “You know she was the one who saw the fire that night? From her window.”
“Yeah,” Ethan said softly. “I know.”
“And she had to look out there every day and see where her friend died and it was just a—a reminder, every day, and she couldn’t even tell anybody and . . .”
And Sorrow had tracked her down in a café and asked her about it without warning. It was never only one conversation. That was what Sheriff Reyes had said, and Sorrow knew if she asked, Dr. Silva would say the same. But it must have been painful for Julie, and that was an awful feeling, knowing in retrospect that she might have helped rather than hurt, if only she had known.
“Our families are so fucking stupid,” Ethan said.
“Yeah.”
In the kitchen the water was running, and there was a soft clatter as Grandma searched through utensils in a drawer.
“I remember talking to her,” Ethan said.
“Julie?”
“Patience.”
Sorrow looked at him. “You do?”
“A little. There was this one Christmas. I was like six or seven. Young enough that my parents were still trying to make the whole happy-family holidays thing happen. We were over at my aunt and uncle’s for presents and food and everything, and of course everybody started fighting about . . .” Ethan let out a long sigh. “Something. I don’t know what. They always did. Cass was crying. I decided I’d rather go outside and just . . . get out. Away from all the shouting. It was getting dark and it was snowing, but I went anyway. I knew I wasn’t supposed to go over to your place. That was like the number one rule, right? But if you tell a dumb kid to stay away from the scary ladies in the haunted orchard next door, what’s the first thing he’s going to do when he gets a chance?”
Sorrow imagined a tiny towheaded Ethan tramping away from the noise of a family argument under a dark gray December sky, and the forbidden orchard next door his only escape.
“I’m guessing you didn’t get caught,” she said.
“Not by anybody in my family,” Ethan said. “Your sister caught me, though. Or, not caught me, she just found me and asked me if I was lost.”
Patience would have smiled through the falling snow, soft and kind and just a little bit teasing, her cheeks pink beneath her green wool hat, her hazel eyes warm.
“I said I wasn’t. I don’t think she believed me. She asked me if I wanted her to show me the way home and I said no, so she asked me if I wanted to climb a tree instead,” Ethan said. “That sounded way better than going home, so we went up to that huge oak on the hill, and she helped me up onto one of the low branches—not that high or anything—and climbed up there too. She asked me if I ever stopped and listened to the snow falling.”
Patience had asked Sorrow the exact same thing once, and Sorrow had laughed, told her she was being stupid, told her there was nothing to hear. Patience had laughed right back at her and said she didn’t know how to listen. She was always so sure she knew better. Sorrow didn’t know where that certainty had come from. She couldn’t imagine ever being that sure about anything.
“She said if I listened hard enough,” Ethan went on, “I could hear the orchard whispering. Not like it was creepy or anything. She said it like it was . . . just the way it was.” He was quiet for a moment. “When it got dark she walked me back to the fence, and she told me I could come back anytime I wanted to get away.”
Sorrow took a sip of her tea. The clouds didn’t seem to be lifting as the morning crept along. If anything they were hunkering down, sinking over the mountain peaks, threading a mist as fine as cobwebs between the trees. It wasn’t chilly enough to be uncomfortable, but still she could feel the cool air on her arms and legs, a light touch on her skin.
“Is it cloudy like this in town?” Sorrow asked.
If the question surprised him, he didn’t show it. “Yeah. It might rain later.”
“That would be good.”
Sorrow scraped the heel of her shoe over the packed dirt at the base of the porch steps. She wondered if locals were looking at the sky with suspicious eyes, whispering about witch weather, wondering when it would break. It hadn’t stayed cold, not like in the old stories where the unnatural weather lasted weeks or months, but the sun remained stubbornly hidden.
A minute or so of quiet, then Ethan exhaled tiredly, slumped against the porch post, and rubbed his eyes. “I can’t even imagine what this must be like for Cassie.”
Sorrow felt a pang in her chest. “Have you talked to her?”
“No. I tried to go over there, but my aunt told me . . .” His lips twisted, nothing like a smile. “Well, she said to come back later, and shut the door in my face. Cassie hasn’t answered my texts. I think they took her phone away.”
“Why would they do that?”
“I don’t know. I have no idea what they’re doing. It’s not like she would even want to talk to me, but . . .” A shrug, and Ethan put his hands down to push himself off the step. “We should probably help Miss P with breakfast.”
There wasn’t much to help with. Grandma had made muffins, and Sorrow fixed more tea while Ethan set out plates. They sat at the table together, but nobody launched into the usual morning conversation about what projects they would work on around the farm that day.
After a couple of minutes of silence, Ethan asked, “Where’s Verity?”
Grandma and Sorrow looked up at the same time, casting their eyes toward the ceiling. When Sorrow dropped her gaze again, she saw that Ethan had noticed.
“She’ll be down,” she said.
He said, “Okay,” and didn’t ask for an explanation, but after a minute he was doing it too: looking up at the ceiling, listening, waiting.
They had finished eating and were cleaning up the dishes before there were footsteps overhead. Sorrow was tense from her neck all the way down her back. She only wanted Verity to come downstairs. Just come downstairs and stop making them worry.
Verity’s bedroom door opened. Footsteps in the hallway. The bathroom door closed. Sorrow told herself to relax. The bathroom door opened again—strange how she had learned so long ago to recognize every sound in the house without even thinking about it, the squeak of every board and hinge loud in her memory even when everything else had faded. Verity was walking, but it shouldn’t be taking her that long to reach the stairs. It was only ten or twelve steps.
Sorrow draped a dish towel over the edge of the sink. She was stepping toward the doorway when she heard the top stair creak, then a pause, and what sounded like the slap of a hand on the wall, a startled curse—“shit”—followed by a series of loud thumps.
Sorrow ran out of the kitchen to find Verity sprawled at the bottom of the stairs. Her limbs were splayed awkwardly, her hair over her face.
“Oh my god.” Sorrow dropped to her knees and touched Verity’s shoulder, reached for her face. “Are you okay? Holy shit, did you fall? Are you okay?”
Verity moved her head, let out a groan.
“Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
Verity brushed Sorrow’s hand away. “Stop poking. I’m fine.”
“Are you sure? Can you move? Can you sit up?”
Verity lifted her head and gave Sorrow a baleful glare. “I’m fine. I just lost my balance.”
“How did you lose your balance? It’s only the stairs! Did you hit your head?”
Sorrow reached out to grab Verity’s chin, lifted her face to look her in the eye. She didn’t even know what to look for. Verity’s eyes seemed normal. She was avoiding Sorrow’s gaze, but her pupils weren’t pinpoint small or blown wide. A touch on Sorrow’s shoulder—Grandma, leaning down to look too.
Verity pushed Sorrow’s hand away a second time and shifted around so she was sitting on the step. “Stop crowding me. I’m fine.”
“Should I call 911?” Ethan was standing in the kitchen doorway; he already had the phone in hand.
Verity’s gaze snapped up to him. “What are you doing here?”
Ethan blinked, taken aback. “I, uh, came over to—should I?” He was asking Grandma, not Verity.
“You’re not supposed to be here today,” Verity said. She looked away from him quickly, her cheeks burning pink. “We didn’t ask you to come over.”
“But I—”
“Put the phone down.”
“What the fuck,” Sorrow said. “He’s only trying to help. You fell. You could be seriously hurt.”
“I’m not hurt at all. I’m fine,” Verity said. “I’d be a lot more fine if you weren’t all crowding around me like I’m some kind of zoo animal.”
Sorrow gave Ethan an apologetic look. “Just wait outside?”
He nodded and hung up the phone; the screen door clapped as he went out to the porch.
“Do you need a doctor?” Sorrow said. Her voice was shaking; she swallowed, hard, and her throat ached. “Did you hit your head?”
“Nothing happened,” Verity said. She put her hands down to lever herself up, but she changed her mind and sat on the step again. “I just got a little dizzy. I missed the top step.”
“Okay, but, how did—” Sorrow looked up at Grandma, down at Verity again, her mind buzzing with an awful possibility. “When did you last have anything to eat?”
“What? I had dinner with you last night. Don’t be stupid.”
Some part of Sorrow’s mind was mildly shocked at Verity’s words—she had never called Sorrow stupid before, she didn’t say things like that—but she brushed it aside, because Verity was avoiding her eyes, turning her head this way and that to keep from looking at Sorrow and Grandma.
“You barely ate two bites last night.” Sorrow’s voice was so unsteady she nearly choked on the words. “You didn’t have any lunch or breakfast. You were working outside for hours and—did you even have any water? You were out there for hours. Did you eat the day before that?” The question rose to a frightened pitch. She couldn’t remember. She hadn’t been paying attention. How could she not have been paying attention? She looked up at Grandma. “Has she eaten anything? When did she last eat anything?”
Grandma shook her head.
“What the fuck!” Sorrow shouted. “That’s not an answer! How can you not know? It’s been three days? Is that how long? How can—”
“Stop shouting, Sorrow,” Verity snapped. “You’re overreacting.”
“Don’t tell me to stop shouting when you’re not eating! What the fuck are you even—”
Grandma touched Sorrow’s shoulder, and Sorrow closed her mouth with a click. Grandma nudged her aside, and Sorrow stepped back, crossed her arms over her chest, uncrossed them, wrapped them again around her middle.
Grandma eased herself, knees cracking, to squeeze in beside Verity on the stairs. She unclipped her pen from the string around her neck and wrote something in her notebook.
“No,” Verity said. “I don’t think that’s—”
“What?” Sorrow said.
Grandma was still writing.
“Do you need a doctor?” Sorrow asked. “Does she need a doctor?”
Grandma’s hand stilled, and for a moment neither of them moved. There was worry in the lines around Grandma’s eyes, and in the shadows on Verity’s face there was doubt and stubbornness and something almost like shame.
Verity let out a breath. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll call her.”
Grandma nodded shortly. She held out a hand, and Sorrow helped her to her feet. Verity refused the same help, but she kept one hand on the wall as she stood and made her way into the kitchen. Grandma nudged Sorrow’s elbow and pointed to the back door.
“But,” Sorrow began, and Grandma pointed again.
Sorrow let herself be steered outside, across the porch and down the steps, Grandma following right behind her. Ethan hadn’t left; he was waiting on the lawn.
“Is she okay?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Sorrow said. “I don’t think she’s badly hurt. Who is she calling?”
Grandma held out her notebook.
On the first line: You have to call Dr. Parker.
The name was familiar. Verity’s psychiatrist, the woman who had been treating her since her first hospitalization eight years ago. She had come up during their phone conversations over the years.
And on the second: You are scaring your daughter.
A storm of questions crowded into Sorrow’s mind. This was terrain she didn’t know how to navigate. She hadn’t even noticed that Verity wasn’t eating—but that wasn’t entirely true. She had noticed, but she hadn’t known she was supposed to pay attention. Long hours of quiet, days spent in bed, a quiet retreat from the world, these were the things she had been worrying about, the anxious thoughts gnawing at her mind like bugs hollowing out a fallen log, but she hadn’t known to look for this one.
She and Grandma and Ethan stood side by side at the base of the steps, staring toward the house, waiting. They could hear only the murmur of Verity’s voice, see only her silhouette through the screen door. Sorrow rubbed at her arms. The air was damp and misty, teasing her skin with the faintest promise of rain. She hadn’t known. She should have known.