“You!” I yelled. I wanted their attention, even as my body zinged that I was calling to them, that I was acknowledging them at all. But there was no retreat, there was no denying it. “You!”
They couldn’t hear, or wouldn’t. They were turned inward on each other. I squinted through the downpour. Peter’s arm moved to encircle Jessie’s waist, pulling her in. Their thin, wet clothes made a cling wrap around their bodies. Her arms reached around his neck.
Jagged pain shot through my toe, and I howled and spun, my anchoring foot slipping on the grass, a splinter and it hurt, and when my gaze reconnected, I saw that, just as before, they stood hand in hand at the very edge of the cliff.
You don’t exist you don’t exist as I made myself walk closer to them, steeling myself to confront them, no matter that every step I took forward was a step I could have just as quickly taken back you’re nothing even if I see you so what you can’t hurt anybody and so that makes you nothing it makes you nothing nothing
And I knew they’d jump, too. Only this time I watched them—a lover’s leap, the quaint little phrase flitted through my head—as they joined hands and then, feet churning, sailed over the edge of the cliff into the darkness below.
Once I’d reached the same point where they’d stood, I dropped to all fours and crawled on my hands and knees under the railing to stare over the cliff at the dizzying vertical drop to the rocks.
Jump. Done. Peace. The moment lured me, held me tight and tighter, transfixed me and then abruptly let me go.
They’d disappeared. Because they hadn’t really been here. They hadn’t even jumped because you are dead to everyone even to me you aren’t here.
Trembling, drenched, my stupid toe throbbing, I steadied myself and scrambled back under the railing, then sprinted in the opposite direction toward the lighthouse. “Isa! Isa, answer me if you can! Are you in there?”
The door was unlocked, and I burst into the room’s stone-walled silence.
She was in the corner, painting at a small iron table. She barely looked up.
“Hey, Jamie.” With a nonchalant salute of the paintbrush.
“Isa, what are you doing out here? You gave me such a fright!” Still shaking, my fears now scrambled with relief that she was safe, I ran to her and flung my arms around her neck. Practically an orphan. “Why didn’t you come back to the house when the storm got worse?”
Her face tensed. “I did come inside, but I heard you bumping around on the third floor and it made me … I don’t know … I hate the third floor.”
“So you should have gone downstairs to the family room.”
She pouted. “It’s private here. I wanted to see if I could paint the storm.”
“And who were you running around with on the lawn earlier?” I skinned off my soaking Windbreaker, and then sat to check out the splinter tucked like a frown in my toe.
“Who?” she repeated vaguely.
It was lodged in there deep; I’d need tweezers and a steady eye, and even anticipating the project made me feel woozy. A steady eye was not my strong suit. I looked at her. “Over at Skylark, I saw some kid. Some kid you knew.”
“No, I was alone,” she said. “I was playing alone.”
I focused her in. “You know you weren’t. And it wasn’t Milo, either.”
Isa widened her eyes. “Who was it, then?”
“Come on, Isa, it’s not a game. You can tell me.”
She shook her head stubbornly. “I was all by myself.”
“All right, what about out here? The kids near the lighthouse?”
“Nooo. There wasn’t anybody. And I was looking out the window for a while.”
So Isa couldn’t see them. Or she didn’t want me to know that she could see them. I wouldn’t push it, though, not now.
“Let’s get out of here.”
“Hey, Jamie, did you see the lightning hit that tree?”
“I did.”
“It’s a good view from the fog bell. You should go up. Just for a minute. It’s something.”
“Okay, just for a minute. And then I want to get going.” I didn’t mind staying dry a minute or so longer, and I saw what Isa enjoyed about this place as a hideout. The round stone room was medieval but cozy, hung with bracketed lamps. A cookstove and a copper sink were tucked under a back window, and a circular staircase led up to the bell.
I took the stairs cautiously. When I got all the way to the top, the wavy glass offered a warped but breathtaking view of the sea, as well as of Skylark. It was hard to pick out too many details, but I could glimpse all the way through the drawn curtains into the canopy bedroom. Had I left that lamp on? I must have. Except that I knew I hadn’t, and remembering Isa’s story from the other day, about how she used to watch Jessie and Peter from this exact vantage point, I had to answer to that unrelenting tug of thought. They were still here. Of course they were, both of them, I knew it, had known it on some level almost from the moment I’d arrived at Skylark. The unrest of their death was defiant, it beckoned from the corners, from all of their favorite places all their old haunts taunting my peace of mind pat her and prick her and mark her with a J and put her in the ocean and if I stayed here they would
“Jamie?”
I turned with a jump. Isa had followed me, but at my sudden movement, she backed off. “Sorry.” Her eyes, watchful as spiders. “Are you all right?”
“Of course. I just … I have a splinter in my toe. It hurts. C’mon, let’s get back to the house.”
“You don’t like it here, do you?”
“What do you mean?” I swallowed. “Of course I do. It’s beautiful. And the beach … it’s all just so … great.”
“Sometimes you look sad.” Then, quietly, but with a sudden fervor in her voice, “Don’t leave me, Jamie, please? I didn’t mean it the other day, when I said that you were driving the car crazy like Jess. You’re way different. I feel like you understand things about me but you’re not trying to cure me, either, like Dr. Hugh.”
“Isa. Chill your drama, girl. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Promise?”
I went to her. Pressed my damp, cold hands against the sides of her face. “Promise, cross my heart. I am not leaving you.”
But it was as if Isa knew precisely where my mind was. That I’d never wanted to leave Little Bly so much as right that moment, and despite the firm conviction of my touch and my promise, I couldn’t help but resent her need, and all that I knew it would force from me.