Diane looked from my father to me. “But why?” she asked. “Why would they do such a thing?”

“Do you know who they are?” I asked, reaching for the articles I’d showed my father. “Shirley is the daughter of the couple who owned the hotel! After it burned, Benson Harding lost it to your grandfather in a poker game!” I held the articles out to Diane, but she shooed them away.

“I know all of that,” she said, waving her arms, her bracelets jangling. “I’ve known for years. It isn’t some big secret. Terri told me about it ages ago, back when we were kids. I still don’t understand why you think they hired someone to try to scare your sister.” She was looking at me like I’d gone off the deep end.

“So Lexie would sell the property. And they could buy it. Or for cosmic justice because they feel the land and the springs belong to them.”

“So you’re saying it’s about money and Sparrow Crest?” Diane asked.

“Yes! And the springs.”

Diane looked at my father, then back at me. She didn’t look angry anymore. Her face had softened into pity.

It hit me hard: This was how my sister must have felt, again and again for years; having no one believe her, everyone giving concerned, pitying looks—poor crazy Lexie and her runaway thoughts.

“Jax,” Diane said, her voice low and calm. “I think this is projection. These are the reasons you became estranged from Lexie. The house and money. You felt wronged.”

“That has nothing to do with it!”

“Now it’s tangled up with the guilt you feel, and you’re looking for someone other than yourself to blame,” Diane went on.

I glared at her. How dare she take on this pseudo-therapist role with me!

“No!” I turned to my father. “You believe me, don’t you, Ted?”

“I want to,” he said. Diane glared at him. He looked down at the ground, then back up. “I think you’re hurting, Jax. We all are. We’re all trying to make sense of why Lexie is gone. Looking for someone or something to blame. Blaming ourselves, too.” He dug his palms into his eyes. “Put all of that together, and we’re all wrecked and raw and imagining all sorts of crazy shit.”

“No! I’m telling you—”

“Here’s what going to happen,” Diane said. “We’re all going to sit down and have some tea. Then go to bed. Tomorrow, we’ll get up and you two will get packed up. We’ll have a quiet day, just the three of us. No drinking. No trips to the pool or into town. No spearguns! Then Sunday morning I’ll bring you both to the airport. I think the best thing for both of you is to go back home, get a little distance from this place. God knows it’s got its hooks in us all. This house, everything that’s happened here, it fucks with you. It pulls you in, twists everything all around.”

She looked at my father. “Ted, would you please put on the kettle?”

As he did, she pulled out her phone and stepped into the hall. I sank down in my chair, reached for my beer. I heard Diane out in the hall: “… under control now. I’ll tell you all about it later. I need to stay here tonight and tomorrow. Keep an eye on things.” A long pause. “I know. Me too.”

I drank my tea like a good girl, then said I was tired.

“May I be excused?” I asked, not attempting to hide the sarcasm. “I’d like to go up to bed now.”

“Try to get a good night’s sleep, Jackie,” Diane said, her voice calm and sweet, but tinged with annoyance. “I’m sure things will look better in the morning,” she added.

Up in my room, I continued going though Lexie’s journals, putting them in order and into the red binder.

June 9

I have stopped swimming in the pool. Silly, I know. Me and that pool, we go way back. But lately, lately, I can’t bring myself to get into the water. It just seems… too black. Too deep. Too dark. And the weeds, they’ve been bad lately. And the smell seems to grow worse every day.

Then, there are the things I’ve seen.

But I don’t even dare to write them down.

I dreamed of Lexie. I woke up and there she was, standing by the edge of my bed. Pig was there at her feet.

She was soaking wet; I could hear drips of water falling to the wooden floor as she bent down to pet the cat.

“You’re not real,” I said, more to remind myself than to piss her off. She was a hallucination. Part of a dream.

“You’ve gotta stop thinking so hard about what’s real and what isn’t, Jax. You see me, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Then let that be enough.”

chapter thirty

August 10, 1931

Sparrow Crest

Brandenburg, Vermont

Today I saw it for the first time: Sparrow Crest. Our new home.

Will drove us there, little Margaret on my lap, chatting, pointing at and naming the sights along the way: house, cow, horse, car, man, lady, dog, tree. She’s such a clever girl and has become quite the talker, knows a dozen words and uses them again and again. Will says she is very advanced for her age.

Everything is such a delight to her! And to Will and me, now that we see the world through her eyes.

She giggled with delight at each cow.

“And what noise does a cow make?” I asked. “Does a cow say moo?”

“Moo!” she cried. “Moo, moo, moo!”

Will was nervous, fidgety as a little boy—he so wanted me to be pleased with the house. He wanted it to be everything I’d hoped and dreamed for.

We drove through town, passing the general store, the church, the post office, the little schoolhouse.

I am Mrs. Monroe, and my family and I live here in Brandenburg now, I told myself as I took it all in, trying to make it real, to make it sink in. I imagined us all walking through the doors of the church on Sundays, buying bread at the store, introducing ourselves to our new neighbors, Margaret one day being old enough to go to school.

When we turned up the road to the house, Will told me to close my eyes.

“Keep them closed and no peeking, darling wife,” he said. “You too, little sparrow,” he added, and Maggie covered her eyes with her hands as I did, giggling. She started counting, the way she did when we all played hide-and-seek. Only she hadn’t quite learned to count and just listed the numbers she knew: “One, four, six, one.”