by Bre Hall
Ren folded her arms over her chest as an icy breeze picked up, blowing across the field. She followed after Meredith, Pike right behind her, and glanced back one last time to where Peter lay. She wondered what the farmer who owned the land would say when he found Peter and Beverly. Wings spread wide. It’d be in the papers, probably. The police would open an investigation. It would put Wynn on the map. Ren turned away, shaking her head slightly. Meredith would take care of it before anyone saw. Haul their bodies off, burn them, or send someone to collect them.
The highway that led back to the farmhouse was empty. A long strip of black that extended for miles in both directions. That was Kansas roads for you. Flat. Straight. Infinite. They walked silently down the middle of the asphalt, the three of them spread out, lost in their own minds.
Ren’s thoughts drifted to Alfie. She wondered what he would really think of all that had happened. Of Meredith being some badass angel. Of Ren having supernatural abilities. What would he think of the fact that she wasn’t human? Not anymore at least? She thought to the conversations she’d had with Alfie-disguised-Pike and how easy-going he had been with everything strange that had happened. The real Alfie had been laid back, too. A lover of fiction. A philosopher of sorts. She’d like to think he would have acted the same way. Taken everything as it came. One step at a time.
chapter
27
REN ZIPPED UP HER BACKPACK, stuffed to the brim with clothes and mementos she couldn’t leave behind. Cassette tapes, photographs, a couple of knickknacks from Richard’s. She stood in the doorway, taking one last look at her bedroom. The band posters, the pink walls, her antique gravy boat collection. Later that day, when Ren’s dad was working in the fields and Grams was lost in her own little world, Meredith’s friend Clarke would arrive and remove every trace of Ren’s existence from the house. Not a stitch of her would be left. Not a photo, not a hair, not even her memory.
Ren turned off the light, closed the door, and started slowly down the stairs. As she walked, she breathed in the warm and familiar smell of the farmhouse. Wood and raw earth and cinnamon candles Meredith was always burning. She wanted to bottle the scent and take it with her on their journey.
Forward had been Meredith’s answer when Ren asked her where exactly they were headed. The farthest from home Ren had ever travelled was to Oklahoma City in eighth grade when her class took a field trip to Frontier City Amusement Park. She had a feeling Meredith’s forward would be much farther than roller coasters off of Interstate 35.
The microwave dinged as Ren stepped into the kitchen. Grams sat on a bar stool at the counter, her plastic tiara plopped crookedly on her round head. Ren’s dad removed a steaming mug out of the microwave and placed it in front of Grams.
“Teabag needs to come out.” Grams eyed the drink with a wintry fierceness.
Ren’s dad lifted his furry eyebrows. He picked the mug back up. Spun it slowly, right in front of his face. “There ain’t no string, Mom.”
“Don’t matter,” Grams said. “I like it out. Over-steeped tea is worse than drinkin’ a gallon of spoilt milk.”
“I can think of worse,” he mumbled, then dipped his wide, square fingers into the drink. He plucked the teabag out and immediately released it. It fell back into the mug with a splash, droplets of tea splattering over the counter.
“What’d ya do that for?” Grams asked.
“’Bout scalded my fingerprints off,” he said.
Ren laughed and shook her head. She walked to the silverware drawer and pulled out a spoon. Handed it to her dad. “Try this.”
He fished the teabag out with the spoon and tossed the soaked bag into the garbage. He slid Grams her tea with a forced smile and turned to Ren. “Don’t know what I’d do without you, kiddo.”
“I think you’d figure it out.” She gulped loudly.
Her dad nodded the tip of his nose toward her backpack. “You know it’s Sunday, right?”
She tugged on the straps of the bag. “I’m just going into town for the day. Thought I’d do some homework at Roast.”
“If you ain’t doin’ it at home then it ain’t homework,” Grams said. She took a sip of her tea and spit it back into the mug. “What kind of tea you servin’ Hank?”
“What’s wrong with it now?” Ren’s dad grumbled. He looked at Ren and lowered his voice. “It’s the third cup I’ve made her. She’s on my last nerve.”
“Heard that,” Grams said.
“Did you put a splash of whiskey in it?” Ren asked her dad.
“Whiskey?” His jaw hung open. “In tea?”
“Don’t act so shocked,” Grams said. “I’m an old woman. I like what I like.”
“I’ve got to get to work,” Ren’s dad said, his eyes flashing to the windows and landing on the barn in the distance.
Ren flicked her hands through the air, shooing him away. “Don’t worry. I’ll fix it for her.”
“I owe you one.” His work boots plunked rhythmically over the wood floor as he made his way to the door.
“Wait,” Ren said, shuffling quickly toward him. She wrapped her arms around his torso, pressed her head against his chest, and squeezed him like she’d never do it again, because the way Meredith explained it, she wouldn’t.
He laughed, his low voice rumbling against her ear. “What’s this for?”
Still squished against her dad’s chest, she wiped a single tear that was falling from her good eye and tried to keep her voice steady. “Just saying goodbye.”
“Well,” he wrapped his arms around her, “Goodbye, then. I’ll see you this evening.”
He ruffled the top of her head the way he used to when she was a kid, then turned and headed out the door. She watched him make his way across the back yard, his long legs gliding over the grass with a slight bow leftover from his rodeo days. He adjusted the bill of his faded, purple Wildcats cap and ducked into the barn, vanishing from sight. Someday, she’d be back, no matter what Meredith said. After all of the Discentem business was over, she’d come home. Even if no one remembered who she was, she’d come back anyway, just to say hello.
Grams cleared her throat. “You gonna get me my tea or am I gonna die of thirst?”
Ren shook her head and opened the cabinet above the refrigerator, where the few bottles of liquor were kept. She pulled down a bottle Irish whiskey and poured a few drops into Grams’ mug of tea.
“You know you’re crazy, right?” Ren told Grams, then leaned over the counter, lifting up off the ground a few inches, and pecked a kiss on Grams’ forehead. “But I love you anyway.”
Grams waved a dismissive hand through the air. “Yeah, yeah. Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
Ren slid the whiskey back into the cabinet and walked slowly toward the front door. She pulled her boots on one at a time. Tied the laces. Stood in the entryway for a moment, staring at the brass knob on the door. She couldn’t put it off any longer. Meredith was in town, gassing up her rig, Pike was collecting provisions from the Country Mart, and Ren had one last stop to make before they hit the road. Before they started on their journey forward.
She inhaled sharply and turned the doorknob.
REN PEDALED HER DAD’S OLD bicycle up the only hill in Wynn to the cemetery. The early morning light cast a pink hue over the headstones, visible through the bars of the wrought iron fence. She leaned the bike against a tall maple tree, nearly empty of leaves, and slipped through the back gate.
According to Meredith, Alfie was buried in the back corner, where Pike had always gone to do his grave rubbings when he posed as Alfie. She’d probably glanced at his headstone a dozen times and never had any recollection of it.
She walked carefully over the graves, keeping close to the gravestones. It was peaceful in the cemetery. Quiet, except for the wind teetering through the tree branches above. With her hyper-senses she could hear the families who lived nearby, rustling around in their houses fixing breakfast, but she tried to shut them out. She just wanted to live in that si
ngle moment. She just wanted to say goodbye to her friend in peace.
He was where Meredith said he’d be. Alfred Norman Berger: A Son, A Light, A Friend. She knelt down in the grass on top of his plot, right in front of his granite headstone. She sucked on her nose and held her tears back as best as she could.
“Hey,” she said softly, her voice mixing with the wind. “Sorry it took me so long to come and see you. I—well, you probably know already.”
The rumble of an engine. A streak of pearl-white. Meredith’s SUV rolled up along the curb. Ren didn’t have long, so she unzipped the small pouch on the front of her backpack.
“I brought you something.” She pulled out a worn, paperback novel she’d stolen off of Grams’ shelf. “It’s nothing exciting, just a who-dun-it mystery, but I thought you might like it.”
She leaned the book against the edge of the headstone. Brushed at the spine, at the curling pages on the opposite side. Her shoulders slumped forward. Her head tucked into the hollow of her neck. She squeezed teardrops from her eyes like lemon juice. She tried to picture Alfie—glacial blue eyes blinking across the lunch table, crooked nose scrunched up as he laughed at one of her dumb, cynical jokes—but she couldn’t. All she saw was his blonde hair, streaked with red, and his body hanging lifeless from the seat of Grams’ Beetle.
A hand squeezed her shoulder. She flinched and looked up through tear-blurred vision at Pike. A thick, wool-lined plaid coat was buttoned tight around his stocky body. His shoulder-length, strawberry blonde locks were almost glowing in the rising sunlight.
“I’ve lost people too,” he said softly. “So, when I say I’m sorry, I mean it. What I wouldn’t give for one more moment.”
She sniffled and stood to her feet. “Will you, then?”
“Will I what?”
“I know it’s not going to be him.” She closed her eyes. Bleached hair mottled with crimson. Gangly arms hanging limp. Her brown eyes peeled open again. “But I need to see his face one last time. I need to say things to him in-person. Please, Pike, can you be Alfie one last time?”
“Turn around,” he said, and she did.
She stared through the fence at Meredith, shut up inside her car, blonde curls pulled back into a ponytail, lips as red as blood, staring straight ahead. Her hands were wrapped tightly around the steering wheel. If someone had told Ren a week ago, she’d be spending so much time with Meredith, she would have rolled her eyes and called them insane. The woman was still barbed-wire sharp, but Ren was carefully finding her way around that.
A finger tapped her shoulder and she turned back to face Pike, who had transformed into tall, kind-faced Alfie once more. There they were—those eyes. She remembered the first time she looked at those eyes. It was during the first recess when Kindergarten started back up after Christmas. She was curled up in the plastic tunnel on the jungle gym that connected one slide platform to the other. Kids were running wild all around her, playing tag while she hid from them. Suddenly, a lanky, blonde boy crawled into the tunnel with her. She was about to dash out of the tube and down the slide, away from him, when he looked up and she saw those blue eyes. Icy, but warm. They calmed her somehow. Made her let him in. Alfie had just moved with his family from Munich to Wynn. She learned quickly he didn’t speak much English, but with Ren, he didn’t need to. She spoke enough for the both of them. After that day, they became inseparable.
“There are so many things I want to say to you.” Ren reached out and took Alfie’s hand in the cemetery. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to say it all, but I suppose I’ll say more than enough. Alfred Berger, you were the best friend anyone could ever ask for. Even though you were a little too quiet and brooding at times, I overlooked that. And the fact that you could read a book in a matter of hours always freaked me out a little bit.”
She and Alfie both laughed. Next came more tears. She started to speak once more, but couldn’t. She wiped at the streams coursing down her cheeks and sniffled. Then she started laughing again.
“You better enjoy these tears,” she said. “Because you know I never cry.”
Alfie squeezed her hand and said, “It’s okay.”
“But it’s not.” Her lips pinched together. “We were supposed to get out of this town one day, the two of us, and have all kinds of exciting adventures. I just can’t help but think I might just be about to do that and you’re still here. Stuck in this stupid cemetery. And I—I’m sorry. It’s my fault you’re dead. They wanted me and took you instead. I’ll never forgive them for that. Never forgive myself.”
“Don’t say that,” Alfie said, but she could hear Pike in his voice more than anything. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“Shh,” she said. “It’s true. It is my fault. But I’m going to follow Meredith forward and maybe, one day soon, I will reconcile it all. I love you, Alf. I always have and I always will. You’re my best friend. You were the best friend.”
She leaned into Alfie and wrapped herself around him. She sobbed into his chest, despite knowing she was probably getting snot all over his purple Aloha shirt. He stroked her long braid. Rubbed her back. Let her cry. She breathed in the scent of fresh laundry and the piney cologne he wore. She memorized the rhythm of his heartbeat. The feel of his smooth arms wrapped around her. She wanted that moment to last forever, but all too quickly the softness of Alfie’s shirt turned scratchy, like wool, and her arms widened as his torso expanded, as he became less bone and more muscle. Until Alfie was gone and Pike was all that was left.
“We should go,” Pike said, a hand still trailing down her braid.
“Yeah.” She pulled away from him and wiped her eyes. She picked up her backpack and threw it over her shoulder. Without even a glance back at Alfie’s headstone, she headed for the cemetery gate with her dad’s bike.
Ren wheeled the old three-speed to the back hatch of Meredith’s SUV. She lifted it on top of a couple of small boxes Meredith had packed. Her own mementos from her time in Wynn.
Ren climbed into the passenger’s seat of the SUV and Pike slid into the back. Meredith put the vehicle in drive, but idled on the curb for another moment.
“All good?” Meredith asked.
Ren could feel Pike’s eyes boring into the side of her head. She would probably have been able to see him staring at her if he hadn’t been sitting in her blind spot. She was glad she had a chance to tell Alfie goodbye, but she hated that Pike had heard it all. He knew more about her than she did about him and that unsettled her. She didn’t know much truth about Meredith either, not really. If she stripped her situation down, the reality was, she was leaving her hometown, her family, everything she’d ever known, to set out with two strangers who wouldn’t even tell her where they were going.
But she had to trust them.
What choice did she have? Joe would be back to try and finish what Peter had started. She would not let Alfie’s death be a waste.
Ren chewed on her thumbnail. “It’s all good. Let’s just get going.”
“Alright, then.” Meredith punched the gas pedal down hard and the SUV sped off in the direction of the town limits on the east side of town.
They breezed past the high school and the trailer park where Scary Larry lived, still watching everything most likely. What would everyone at school say? Her teachers? Frizzy-haired Alice Martin? She never did go horseback riding with her. Never would. By Monday, no one would remember Ren Morris at all.
The brick roads turned to concrete and the ‘Now Leaving Wynn’ sign flashed by. Meredith clicked on the radio. A rock station playing mostly static rolled through the car’s speakers. Ren adjusted the tuner and landed on a country station, keeping Meredith in her blind spot to avoid the raised eyebrow look she’d get for her uncharacteristic choice in music. She didn’t care, though. She wanted something to remind her of home.
The sun was bright on the horizon, washing out the road, which twisted to the north, toward the larger freeway. Ren peeked over her shoulder, past Pike, and gazed out the back
window. The town was hardly visible at all. The shelter belts from surrounding fields blocked her view. But she could see one thing. The flagpole at the cemetery. Stripes and stars fluttering in the breeze. She stared it down with her good eye until it began to shrink. Until Wynn was nothing at all. Then, she turned back around and looked into flat distance as they barreled forward.
Acknowledgments
To my dad, Dean, for always encouraging me to pursue my dreams. I will never stop being thankful for what you have given me. It is more than words can ever say. I am so grateful for the relationship that we have. And if I don’t stop talking now, an entire page will be written and we will both be crying.
To Bobbi, for your loving support and willingness to listen when I suddenly get chatty. I appreciate you more than you know. Thank you.
To Ramona and Ted, for the unconditional love and support you have shown me over the years, and for so much more. I am so blessed to have you in my life.
To my grandparents, all four of you—Dick, Alice, Gladys, and Norman. Without your faith in me, your love for me, and your openness to allow me to be myself, I would not be the creative individual I am today. And the stories. Oh my word. The amazing stories each of you have told me. Thank you.
To my cousins, every single one of you. I’m not going to list all of your names, because you know who you are, and let’s face it, we’d be here all day. Being an only child gave me the chance to grow closer to each of you in different ways. Thank you for the laughs and the love. You taught me what real friendship looks like.
To Lisa and Steve, for always accepting me for me, and for giving me a space where I could focus on this project and others. Thank you is not enough, but it will have to do.
To Rebekah and Evita, for late nights filled with endless cups of tea, sweets that literally rotted my teeth, and the never-ending supply of good craic. I don’t think this novel would be nearly complete without our days-long sessions in that tiny room at the front of 64 Baggott Street. Thank you.