EMERY, 18; NASH, 28
Bad things seemed to happen when the world looked its best.
The red maples Eastridgers prided themselves for had begun to shed. Sanguine leaves painted the town vibrant shades. During this season, Eastridge could serve as a movie set, but we’d never taken too kindly to strangers, especially Hollywood folk.
The temperature sat somewhere between sweater weather and skinny jeans with a spaghetti strap, so I opted for a tee that read ukiyo-e and my black skinnies. Virginia would lose her shit if she caught sight of me, but she’d been acting all weird lately, so I’d probably slipped her mind.
I came back from the grocery store with a bag of chips in my hand and rebellion stitched onto my face, my mother’s black credit card hidden in my back pocket. The idea of Virginia catching me sent aftershocks through my limbs. Baby earthquakes I welcomed, because they meant something had rattled, shaken, changed.
The staff’s strict orders to confiscate any junk food from me went ignored as I opened the door to dozens of unfamiliar faces. I recognized their windbreakers from the movies, bold yellow letters that spelled F.B.I. across the back.
Some had S.E.C. printed on them, and living in a town of sinners, of course, I knew those letters, too. I just never thought I’d see them in my house. The one Dad owned. Squeaky clean, all-around good guy Gideon Winthrop.
It had to be a mistake.
People came in and out of Dad’s office, holding bagged documents and files, a few paintings, and his laptop. Even the wooden clock I’d made him with the crooked edges and the botched engravings went with them.
My eyes sought and failed to find Dad—or Virginia. I later learned the investigators had found nothing concrete, he hadn’t been arrested, and they’d found enough light circumstantial evidence to launch a very formal, very public investigation. When Dad’s company folded soon after, it might as well have been an admission of guilt.
But in the moment, I didn’t care about the future. Panic sped my legs through the mansion. No one stopped me as I launched myself out the backdoor and sprinted to the Prescott’s cottage.
The place looked deserted before I remembered Betty had gone with Hank to an annual doctor’s appointment, Nash no longer lived there, and Reed left for an overnight tour of Duke with Basil. I couldn’t hear the agents in the house from here. If I closed my eyes, I could convince myself they didn’t exist.
The key in my pocket tempted me. I could let myself in, but I didn’t want to bring the Prescotts into this mess they’d had nothing to do with. The idea of looking them in the eye mortified me, too. Not when none of us would ever be the same.
So, I folded my arms against my chest in front of the cottage, refusing to cross the invisible line past that ridiculous half-black, half-blue mailbox. Even when someone walked up and stood beside me, staring at the tiny house.
I didn’t remember how long silence chilled the air before he asked, “Do you have a key?”
“No,” I lied, refusing to stare at him, because if I did, it would make this more real than it already was.
This wasn’t me. I wasn’t the type to stand idly by as my world crashed around me. I was the type to fight back, digging into whatever flesh I could grab, diving headfirst into whatever abyss would take me, even if it tore my nails off and swallowed me whole.
But I knew whatever I did today would haunt me for the rest of my life. Something in the moment felt pivotal. If I sneezed wrong, I’d trigger a butterfly effect. I’d be smart about this. For me. For the Prescotts.
I wanted to walk in there, hug Betty and Hank, sit next to Reed at the spare dining room seat Hank had built just for me, and beg for an extra serving of chicken and dumplings one last time. Except, it wasn’t a special day of celebration, and I knew I’d missed my chance as soon as I heard this man approach. That, and it was a rare day where the cottage had been emptied.
That itself should have been an omen.
The stranger shoved his hands into his pockets. “It’s illegal to hinder a federal investigation.” He sounded young, but I still refused to look at his face.
“It should be illegal to be a dick.” It slipped out of my mouth before I could stop it.
He laughed, the full-bellied type that traveled all over your body and left you warm. “It should be, but it isn’t. I’m glad, because I’m not made for jail. Are you?”
No. Neither were the Prescotts, not that they were going to jail. Not even Nash, whom I hated for sleeping with me and acting like a jerk after.
“I’m not going to jail.” I kicked at a loose brick on the path to the house. It wiggled a bit but remained an immovable force, reminding me I needed to plant my feet and stop this madness from touching Reed and his family. “The Prescotts have nothing to do with this. I don’t even know what this is, but there’s a family living inside that is completely innocent and does not deserve to have their belongings torn apart and searched.”
“Who lives there, Miss Winthrop?”
Liar, my lips begged to scream. You already know, you snake.
Magic words couldn’t heal this, but I mouthed one anyway.
Querencia.
Noun.
A place where one feels safe.
A place from which one’s strength of character is drawn.
The Prescott cottage was my querencia.
“Who lives in the cottage, Miss Winthrop?” he repeated.
“You don’t know?”
“I do. I want to hear you say it.”
“The Prescotts.”
“No, Emery.” My name rolled off his tongue so naturally, as if we were friends. Filthy snake. “Their names.”
Not a snake.
A fiery serpent.
It reminded me of the Book of Numbers, the story some of the nannies would tell to scare us into behaving. God had sent fiery serpents to punish people for speaking out against him. Moses built the Nehushtan as protection against the serpents. A staff in the shape of a cross, a serpent coiled around the wood.
My hands itched to wrap around one and brand it as a weapon against the world. A weapon against him.
Instead, I whispered their names. “Betty. Hank. Reed. Nash.”
Maybe he wasn’t the snake.
Maybe I was.
A weak one, raised in captivity, not meant to be wild.
“Tell me about Nash,” he said.
“Why?”
“The way you say his name—”
“Is none of your business.” Venom slithered up my throat. If I were a snake, I would poison this man before he touched my Prescotts. “He doesn’t live here anymore. It’s just Betty, Hank, and Reed. And before you accuse them of anything, Reed is just a kid, and Betty and Hank are good people.”
“And Nash? Is he a good person?”
I considered it and realized I didn’t know. As much as I wanted to say no, I couldn’t. Not as an attempt to protect him, but because Nash’s actions always contradicted his words. I didn’t think of him as a bad person.
He wasn’t sweet words.
He was sweet actions.
The notes the agents had probably rifled through proved that.
Besides, Reed never talked about it, but I figured Nash was going through something, and everyone deserved a second chance.
It didn’t mean the sting of that night had disappeared. It didn’t mean my cheeks stopped flushing each time I thought of him. But it was a good type of flush. The way your cheeks warmed when you knew a secret that was too good to keep to yourself.
I’d taken too long to answer, and when I turned to my right, the stranger had already left. I pivoted, pausing when I heard a tree ruffling in the maze. Forcing the curiosity aside, I sprinted down the path to the house in time to catch the profile of the man’s face before he slipped inside my house through the backdoor.
The same face staring back at me on my sketchbook.
Brandon Vu.
