Bren shouts along to the music, and all of us are laughing, and I have to lie back and hold my sides because the laughter has taken me by surprise. It’s the first time I remember laughing like this in a long, long time.
Charlie pulls me to my feet, and now he is jumping and Amanda is jumping, and Ryan is doing this weird step-hop, step-hop, and shake-shake-shake, and then I join in, leaping and flip-flapping and burning across the roof.
When I get home, I’m still wide-awake, and so I spread out the map and study it. One more place left to wander. I want to save this wandering and hang on to it, because once I go there, the project is over, which means there’s nothing left to find from Finch, and I still haven’t found anything except evidence that he saw these places without me.
The location is Farmersburg, which is just fifteen miles away from Prairieton and the Blue Hole. I try to remember what we planned to see there. The text from him that should correspond—if it lines up the way the others have—is the last one I received: A lake. A prayer. It’s so lovely to be lovely in Private.
I decide to look up Farmersburg, but I can’t find any sites of interest. The population is barely one thousand, and the most remarkable thing about it seems to be that it’s known for its large number of TV and radio transmitter towers.
We didn’t choose this place together.
When I realize it, the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
This is a place Finch added without telling me.
VIOLET
The last wandering
I’m up and out of the house early the next morning. The closer I get to Prairieton, the heavier I feel. I have to drive past the Blue Hole to reach Farmersburg, and I almost turn around and go home because it’s too much and this is the last place I want to be.
Once I get to Farmersburg, I’m not sure where to go. I drive around and around this not-very-big place looking for whatever it is Finch wanted me to see.
I look for anything lovely. I look for anything having to do with praying, which I assume means a church. I know from the internet there are 133 “places of worship” in this tiny town, but it seems odd that Finch would choose one for the last wander.
Why should it seem odd? You barely knew him.
Farmersburg is one of these small and quiet Indiana cities filled with small and quiet houses and a small and quiet downtown. There are the usual farms and country roads, and numbered streets. I get nowhere, so I do what I always do—I stop on Main Street (every place has one) and hunt for somebody who can help me. Because it’s a Sunday, every shop and restaurant is dark and closed. I walk up and down, but it’s like a ghost town.
I’m back in the car and driving past every church I find, but none of them are particularly lovely, and I don’t see any lakes. Finally, I pull into a gas station, and the boy there—who can’t be much older than me—tells me there are some lakes up north a ways off US 150.
“Are there any churches out there?”
“At least one or two. But we got some here too.” He smiles a watery smile.
“Thanks.”
I follow his directions to US 150, which takes me away from town. I punch on the radio, but all I get is country music and static, and I don’t know which is worse. I listen to the static for a while before turning it off. I spot a Dollar General on the side of the road and pull over because maybe they’ll be able to tell me where these lakes are.
A woman works behind the counter. I buy a pack of gum and a water, and I tell her I’m looking for a lake and a church, someplace lovely. She screws up her mouth as she jabs at the cash register. “Emmanuel Baptist Church is just up the highway there. They got a lake not far past it. Not a very big one, but I know there’s one because my kids used to go up there swimming.”
“Is it private?”
“The lake or the church?”
“Either. This place I’m looking for is private.”
“The lake’s off of Private Road, if that’s what you mean.”
My skin starts to prickle. In Finch’s text, “Private” is capitalized.
“Yes. That’s what I mean. How do I get there?”
“Keep heading north up US 150. You’ll pass Emmanuel Baptist on your right, and you’ll see the lake past that, and then you’ll come to Private Road. You just turn off, and there it is.”
“Left or right?”
“There’s only one way to turn—right. It’s a short road. AIT Training and Technology is back in there. You’ll see their sign.”
I thank her and run to the car. I’m close. I’ll be there soon, and then it will all be over—wandering, Finch, us, everything. I sit for a few seconds, making myself breathe so I can focus on every moment. I could wait and save it for later—whatever it is.
But I won’t because I’m here now and the car is moving, and I’m heading in that direction, and there’s Emmanuel Baptist Church, sooner than I expected, and then the lake, and here is the road, and I’m turning down it, and my palms are damp against the steering wheel, and my skin has gone goose-pimply, and I realize I’m holding my breath.
I pass the sign for AIT Training and Technology and see it up ahead at the end of the road, which is already here. I’ve dead-ended, and I roll past AIT with a sinking feeling because there’s nothing lovely about it, and this can’t be the place. But if this isn’t the place, then where am I supposed to be?
The car crawls back along Private Road the way I came, and that’s when I see the bend in the road that I didn’t take, a kind of fork. I follow this now, and there’s the lake, and then I see the sign: TAYLOR PRAYER CHAPEL.