Bel ran.
The trees kept her secret, beckoning her through, small pathways opening up, closing once she pushed through. Had they once done the same for Rachel Price, snow-heavy and winter-dark?
The highway was close, cars shushing as they rushed past, keeping Bel quiet. Heart thudding against her ribs, giving life to the knot in her gut.
Stupid. They should never have signed up for this documentary. Never let strangers in with cameras to poke around in her sad, messed-up life. It didn’t feel sad and messed-up, but that was all anyone would see.
The trees parted eventually, giving way to a small residential road that looped around to rejoin the highway. Bel could call her dad and get him to pick her up here. He was at work, but he wouldn’t mind.
But the knot was still too strong, and she didn’t want to have that phone call now, didn’t want to explain why she’d walked away from filming. Dad didn’t deserve that, and Bel wanted to find the right words first, kinder words, like he’d taught her, because nothing inside her felt kind right now.
She could walk home from here. Did it still count as storming off when it would take the best part of an hour to get where she was going? Walk home, calm down, call Dad. A three-step plan that Bel could follow, just one foot in front of the other.
She walked alongside the highway, nerves spiking when a dirty-minded trucker honked at her, rattling the world beneath her. She was trying to calm down, fuck you very much, sir.
Stepping along the midday shadows of the power lines above, like a grounded tightrope walker. An ATV grumbling by too close, a star-spangled banner snapping in the wind. By the time Bel turned past the Circle K on Main Street, there was a warm patch on the back of one heel, the beginnings of a blister. Still a ways to go.
Counting cars and losing track.
Counting clouds but they outpaced her, leaving her behind.
When McDonald’s appeared ahead, she knew she was almost home. Those golden arches, guiding the way.
She turned right after the dollar store, down Church Street. Toward the railway tracks, where she and Carter used to play dares. They got in trouble for that too.
Bel pressed her toe against the metal lip of the track as she crossed over. She could never just walk between, always had to touch them. An unspoken rule.
She glanced up, the cemetery right ahead, then home.
She wasn’t alone. A woman had just crossed over the tracks in front of her, on the other side of the road. Walking slowly.
Not even walking, really, shuffling. Feet dragging against the concrete in shoes too big, soles falling apart, flapping like fish mouths out of water. A horrible grating sound as she stepped, a heavy limp on one side like she’d been walking a lot longer than Bel had.
Then Bel registered her clothes.
A long-sleeved red top. Black jeans.
Golden-blond hair hacked short.
Fucking Fake Rachel. How had she gotten here before Bel?
“Taking your role a little serious, aren’t you?” Bel called to her. “It’s not like you’re going to win an Oscar or anything.”
Bel drew closer, the road still between them, which was lucky for Fake Rachel because Bel’s anger hadn’t cooled all the way yet. Closer still, and Bel noticed something strange. The bright red top wasn’t bright anymore: faded, dirty, patches of brown and dusted white. It was pocked with holes, tiny islands of flesh in a red sea, ripped at the bottom, one sleeve half torn away. The black jeans looked faded too, murky gray, a slit down the back of one thigh, threads clinging across the rift.
Bel narrowed her eyes.
“What happened? Did you fall in a sewer on the way here?”
But how had her hair changed too, in the last hour? Slightly darker, cut roughly by the neck, matted and thick with grime.
“What …”
But there wasn’t an end to Bel’s question. She drew alongside the woman, watching her, matching her slow, shambling steps.
“Who are you?” Bel called across the road.
The woman stopped, turned slowly toward Bel, blinking away the sun.
She didn’t need to answer.
Bel knew who she was. Knew bone-deep, innate somehow, something that couldn’t be learned, only known, only felt. Her heart dancing itself off a cliff edge, into the roiling acid of her gut.
The gray-blue eyes that matched her own. Delicate, pointed chin. Ashen skin that was paler than she’d known it, more lined, sixteen more years of wear. The small tan birthmark on the top of her forehead.
The woman stared back at her, like she knew something too.
She was Rachel Price.
Reappeared.
