Aaron laughed. “Very creatively named.”
“What’d you bring?” Darcy asked, squiring him into the kitchen. “It smells yum.”
Just as Darcy opened the bag, the front door opened and my dad stepped into the house, flicking on the porch light.
“Dad!” I shouted. He barely had time to open his arms before I ran into them. “You’re back!”
“I am,” he said, dropping his keys on the table next to the framed photo of my family. “What’s with the hero’s welcome?”
I hesitated. He wasn’t acting like someone who’d gone on a fruitless mission to right his daughters’ lives. In fact, he looked happy and relaxed. Beaming, even.
“Um…where’ve you been?” I asked.
He was already looking past me toward the kitchen, where Darcy and Aaron were unpacking the food on the Formica table.
“You’ll never believe it,” he said. “I was at the mayor’s house, and she’s going to help me get my book published!”
“Really?” Darcy squeaked, taking a bite of fried shrimp as she sat down at the table. “How?”
“Apparently, she used to be in publishing, and she knows all these agents and editors,” my father said, strolling into the kitchen and eyeing the array of fish, fries, and sauces Aaron had laid out. “How’re you, Aaron?” he asked, slapping him on the back.
“Doing well, sir. Help yourself,” Aaron replied.
“Daddy, that’s great,” Darcy said as my father went to the cabinet for plates. “Are you done with it?”
“Almost,” he replied happily. “She said she’ll read it as soon as it’s finished.”
I walked slowly to the kitchen threshold, watching as the three of them settled in for their meals. They looked like some kind of brightly lit sitcom. The single dad, his pretty daughter, and her sweet little friend. For a brief moment I wondered if that was why this house was decorated like something out of the fifties. Were they—whoever they were—trying to paint the perfect American family backdrop before people moved on?
“That’s where you’ve been all day? With the mayor?” I asked.
My father frowned, thinking, as he loaded his plate with fried clams. “No. I went for a walk, had lunch at the general store, then bumped into her at the library.”
Untrue. Completely untrue. He’d stormed out of here on a mission and driven to the ferry. There was no way he’d spent the day wandering around. Someone or something had screwed with his memory—screwed with his mind. I looked at Darcy, waiting for her to ask about the mainland, but she didn’t. She simply pushed herself up from the table and went to get everyone drinks.
They’d messed with her mind, too.
“Are you gonna have some?” Aaron asked, glancing at me over his shoulder. “If you are, you’d better start or I’m gonna eat it all.”
I just stared at him. They were all brainwashed. Every one of them. If Darcy disappeared tonight, then tomorrow, Aaron wouldn’t remember her. And if Aaron disappeared, too, my father wouldn’t remember either of them. How did they do it? How did they erase everyone’s memories and replace them with new ones?
“Rory?” my father said.
And even worse, if this was happening all around me, how did I know it wasn’t happening to me, too? Everything that had occurred since I got here could be a lie.
“Actually, I’m not really feeling that well,” I said, taking a step backward. “I think I’m just going to go to bed.”
I raced up the stairs two at a time, ignoring my father’s call to come back. What did it matter? There was every possibility he wouldn’t remember any of this in the morning.
I saw it the second I awoke the next morning. Sitting dead center in the middle of my polished brown nightstand was a single gold coin. I reached for it, my fingers trembling, and laid it flat in the center of my palm. How had the coin gotten there? I felt like I had on every Christmas morning from the day my logic-loving, four-year-old brain had realized the improbability of Santa Claus. Every year for four years I’d tried to stay up to see how it all really happened, how those gifts appeared under the tree, but every year I dozed off and woke up with a start, amazed at the wonder of it all, but secretly angry at myself for failing, yet again, to see the truth with my own eyes.
Leaning back against my pillows, I flipped the coin over and over between my fingers, trying to keep the hovering sadness at bay, knowing I was just avoiding what the coin really meant.
Today was the day. I was going to do my first real ushering, all on my own. But instead of feeling full of purpose and light, my chest was impossibly heavy. I was going to begin my mission without Tristan.
I tromped downstairs and into the kitchen, focused on the coffee machine, but a blur of blue outside on the beach stopped me cold. It was Tristan. He was sitting on the beach behind our house, staring out at the water.
Suddenly, I could have sworn I felt the coin burning a hole in the front pocket of my jeans. I forgot all about the coffee and headed outside. Tristan didn’t turn as I approached. He had his legs pulled up, his forearms resting across his knees as he played with a bit of broken reed between his hands. The wind whistled in my ears as, out on the ocean, a rainbow-striped sail bobbed over the waves. I dropped down next to Tristan and pulled out the coin. He glanced at it.
“Today’s the day,” he said.
“Do you know who it is?” I asked.
He shook his head and pushed his legs out in front of him, poking the reed into the sand at his side, making a long, straight mark like a tally. “Not yet. But you will, soon enough.”
I swallowed hard, staring out at the water, my jaw set. “What’re you doing here?”
“I wanted to check in about yesterday—”
“Yeah. About that—” I interjected.
Tristan hesitated for a beat. “What’s up?”
“What the hell happened to my dad?” I demanded. “When he came home, it was like his memory was wiped.”
“What did you expect to happen?” he asked neutrally.
For some reason, that blasé tone got right under my skin. This was my father’s mind we were talking about. His memory. His emotions. He might be just another dead guy to Tristan and the mayor and the rest of Juniper Landing—just another visitor to keep in the dark—but he was my father. The only parent I had left.
“I don’t know,” I snapped, shoving myself up to my feet. “I thought you guys would pretend the ferry broke down or the mayor would…just convince him she’d find out what was going on with Nell.”
Tristan got up as well, still holding the small reed. The wind blew his hair back from his face, and I couldn’t help noticing how sharp his cheekbones suddenly seemed.
“What would be the point of that?” he asked calmly. “He’d only start asking more questions tomorrow.”
Like memory wiping was an obvious and not at all insidious solution. I groaned and started to walk back toward my house. Tristan, of course, followed.
“Rory, look, I’m sorry if you find the whole thing disturbing, but that’s just how it works around here,” he said. “Would you rather your father be up there right now in a panic, planning his next attempt to leave?”
I looked at the windows of my dad’s bedroom. He’d been up late working on his novel with renewed enthusiasm, now that the mayor had him convinced she could get it published. He was probably at his desk right now, editing and rearranging, muttering lines of dialogue out loud to himself.
“Of course not,” I said. “But that doesn’t make it right.” I stared past him at the sailboat, wishing I could be on it, sailing off to…well, anywhere but here. “How does it work, exactly?” I asked. “Does the mayor have special powers or something? Did she sneak in here at some point and wipe Darcy’s brain, too?”
“No. It’s not like she has to touch a person or something,” he said, his blue eyes serious. “Most of the time, the memory fix just happens on its own. Like when a visitor leaves and no one remembers them the next day. It?
??s automatic. Your dad was a special case. She had to place new memories in his mind, and once she did that, Darcy’s memories were changed to match his.”
I shuddered in the wind and hugged myself tightly. “How does she do that? Place new memories?”
Tristan ran his fingers through his blond hair. “It’s kind of wild, actually. She just sits with the person, looks them in the eye, and tells them a story,” he explained. “When she’s done, whatever’s she’s told them, they believe it actually happened that way.”
“So she hypnotizes people,” I said.
“In a way. But she doesn’t do it often,” Tristan said. “Only in extreme situations.”
I nodded, trying to swallow the lump in my throat. “Why can I still remember what happened?”
Tristan turned to face me fully. “Because you’re a Lifer,” he said, like it was obvious. “Our minds can’t be altered.”
“How do I know that?” I demanded. “How do I know that anything that’s happened to me is real?”
“Because,” he said, reaching out and placing his hand on my forearm, “I’m telling you. I swear to you, Rory. You’re safe here.”
I stared down at his hand, an accusation in my eyes. He quickly released me.
“Can you do that, too?” I asked, watching his hand as he pushed it into his pocket. “Implant new memories? Can I?”
Tristan sighed. He walked over to the bottom step leading up to our deck and sat down, sliding toward the railing to give me enough room to join him. “No. Only the mayor can do that.”
“So she does have special powers,” I said, sitting next to him but making sure no part of my leg touched any part of his.
“A few.” He used the reed to draw a series of vertical lines in the sand on the step. “She was sent here after the Jessica thing happened,” he said, keeping his eyes on his work. “She can tell if a Lifer with bad intentions arrives here, and if they do, she can send them straight to Oblivion.”
My throat tightened. Somehow the wind suddenly felt colder than it had a moment ago. “Well, that’s terrifying.”
“What?” he asked.
“One person having that kind of power,” I told him, wondering how he couldn’t see it. “Has that ever happened? Has she ever sent anyone there?”
Tristan nodded. “Twice. Both men. I never even found out their names. She just…dealt with them.”
“So they didn’t even get to plead their case?” I asked. “They didn’t have a chance to redeem themselves?”
Tristan looked me in the eye and shook his head. “We can’t let it happen again, what happened with Jessica. We can’t take that chance.”
It seemed so extreme. But then, I hadn’t been here when Jessica had sent their world teetering toward the brink. I couldn’t imagine what it must have been like, the visitors rising up against the Lifers. All the fear and anger and paranoia. The wind hit me with such force at that moment that I shivered.
“Are you cold?”
Tristan moved to put an arm around me, and I automatically flinched. “Don’t do that.”
He blinked. “What? I was just—”
I stood up, trembling from head to toe as goose bumps popped up all over my skin. “You can’t tell me you can’t be with me and then keep doing things like that. It’s not fair, Tristan,” I said, my voice cracking.
He stood up and faced me, so close that our bare toes touched. My chest radiated heat with each pained thump of my heart. I crossed my arms over my stomach, holding on to myself for dear life.
Focus, Rory. Focus.
“Rory—”
“No,” I said. “Please, Tristan. Just…don’t.”
He took a tiny step backward, and it was all the incentive I needed. I raced up the steps and across the deck, slamming the kitchen door behind me. Only when I was safely inside did I look back. And Tristan still stood alone in the sand at the bottom of the steps.
Watching.
Running. Running was good. Running cleared my head. It upped my endorphins. It made me feel positive, like everything was going to be all right. Until I came around a turn into the center of town and saw the mayor’s big, imperious mansion staring down at me, and a pulse of fear stopped me cold.
How could one person be allowed to wield so much power? If she could send people to Oblivion without even consulting with anyone else, what was to stop her from banishing every person who disagreed with her? Every person who looked at her wrong? Every person who wore a pair of ripped jeans or stepped on a flower or littered?
I jogged over to the general store and paused under the shade of its blue-and-white-striped awning. Bracing my hands against my knees, I gazed up at the turrets, the wraparound porch, the paned windows, and wondered what she was doing in there right now. Was she wiping someone else’s memory? Deciding the fate of some poor Lifer?
Chill, Rory, I told myself, standing up straight again. Tristan said it was only in extreme situations. There’s nothing to worry about.
The wind shifted, and I automatically looked at the weather vane. The fog had come and gone about an hour earlier, when my dad and I had been out on the back deck barbecuing burgers for lunch, and the vane was now pointing south. I wondered which unlucky soul had been ushered to the Shadowlands—and was thankful I had not been the one to do it.
Another stiff breeze yanked a rotten peach from a nearby tree, and it rolled to a stop at my feet. A fat black worm poked its head out of a slimy brown bruise in the peach’s flesh. I grimaced and kicked the peach as hard as I could into the brush at the end of the sidewalk.
Taking a deep breath, I reached back for my ankle to stretch my quads. On the far side of the park, I saw the man whom Dorn had shaken hands with the other night jog up the steps of the library and duck inside. I lowered my foot and reached my arms back to open my chest. Kevin came around the side of the library, glanced quickly over his shoulder, and went in. He was soon followed by Dorn. Then Bea. I dropped my arms, curiosity tingling at the base of my skull. Sure enough, two seconds later, the door of the police station opened and Fisher and Joaquin appeared, toting two heavy bags each. They turned right and headed straight for the library.
I narrowed my eyes, my heart pounding furiously. What were they up to? I reached back to stretch my other quad and lost my balance.
“Gotcha!”
Aaron stepped up onto the sidewalk from the street and grabbed my arm. The second we touched, I had a flash. Aaron on a plank floor, crawling for the window, his fingernails digging into the wood while flames and smoke engulfed him. He reached for the windowsill, red and blue lights throbbing outside, knowing that if he could just get to his knees, if he could just signal someone… He tried to breathe, but his throat was closed, his lungs turned inside out. Someone outside was screaming his name. He collapsed on the floor and shut his eyes, sputtering, choking, gone.
“Hey! Are you okay?”
I blinked, my eyes bleary, until Aaron’s handsome face came into focus. His smiling, innocent, sweetly clueless face. I sucked in a breath and coughed, doubling over.
“Rory?” he asked, patting my back and sounding alarmed. “Rory? Talk to me. What just happened?”
I shook my head at the bricks beneath our feet, trying not to sob out loud. I heaved in a loud breath and stood up straight, reaching for his shoulder to steady myself, but then recoiled in fear of another flash and grabbed one of the columns supporting the awning instead. My leather bracelet slipped from my sweaty wrist toward my elbow.
“I don’t know,” I gasped. “I just…got dizzy.”
“Are you okay? Maybe we should go inside for some water,” Aaron suggested. “Or ice cream. It’s on me.”
I stared at him, trying not to let the horror and sadness shine through. “Sure,” I said, mostly just to make him stop being so solicitous, so I could think and regroup. “I just need to stretch some more. I’ll meet you inside.”
“You sure you’re okay?” Aaron asked again, his brown eyes concerned. He reache
d out to squeeze my shoulder and I flinched, holding my breath, but this time, nothing happened. I stayed right where I was, in this world, with the breeze blowing fresh air all around us, the low hum of conversation emanating from inside the restaurant.
“I’m fine,” I said. “I swear.”
“Okay. I’ll get a table.” He strolled inside to the sound of jingling bells and was finally, mercifully gone. I walked to the corner, out of sight of the windows, and covered my mouth with one hand.
Poor Aaron. He’d been so alone. So scared. So desperate. Someone as amazing as he was shouldn’t have had to die that way. No one should ever have to die that way.
Suddenly a hand came down on my shoulder, and I jumped, whirling around. It was Krista, wearing her waitress uniform, a pencil tucked behind one ear.
“You okay? I saw you through the window and I thought you were going to pass out.”
“Yeah, I almost did.” I checked to make sure we were alone. The couple I’d seen get off the ferry yesterday skated by holding hands, and Yoga Girl was back in the park, executing a perfect handstand. “Just now when Aaron touched me, I got the most vivid flash of the way he died.”
“Oh, yeah. That,” Krista said, with a sigh. “That sucked when I first got here. I mean, it always sucks, but the first few times were awful.”
“What the hell was it?” I asked.
Two crows swooped over and perched on the back of one of the outdoor chairs. A third joined them, forcing them to bounce sideways and adjust their talons on the wrought iron bar.
“That’s what happens when you touch the next person you’re going to usher,” Krista told me, twisting her long blond ponytail around her finger. “Since their death is something they can’t tell you about themselves, it gets ‘revealed to you,’” she added, throwing in some air quotes. “It lets you better understand them so you can help them through whatever they need to get through.”
I barely heard a thing after the words next person you’re going to usher.
“Wait a minute,” I said to Krista, waving my hands in front of me. “Wait a minute, wait a minute. Are you telling me that my next charge is…Aaron?”