"I love you, too, Mom," he said. He heard his mother's sob on the other end, and she blew her nose loudly, not bothering to muffle it. After some sniffling on both ends of the line, Owen said, "Howard told me to tell you he still does, whatever that means."
Margaret sniffled again, cleared her throat. "Howard used to say he wished you were his son, instead of Everett's."
"He did?"
"He loved you like his own. You don't remember?"
No matter how much he learned, he still remembered so little of what had come before. "No," he said. He remembered what Howard had said in the hospital about his relationship with her being strictly platonic, at the behest of his mom. "Did he love you, do you think?"
"Howard?" She sounded taken aback. "Oh, goodness, no! I mean, I don't think so. He certainly never indicated anything to me…." A brief pause. "I suppose he could have. Why do you ask? Did he say something to you?"
"Never mind, Mom," he said. "I love you. Don't come up here, okay? I'll be back soon."
She promised she wouldn't.
2
Owen headed out to the car in the dark. He'd cleaned up his blood, pouring bleach onto the stains and daubing them with paper towels, wiping his blood from the bathroom door and the tiles by the toilet, feeling guilty and ashamed, as if he were cleaning up evidence of a crime. In a way, he supposed he should feel guilty. If not for him, Jo would still be alive. If not for him, a lot of good people would still be among the living.
"Not my fault," he assured himself, and thought, Original sin. Blame the child for the crimes of his parents.
He was sitting in the driver's seat with the engine started, a trash bag of bloodied rags thrown into the back, before he noticed the slip of paper on the passenger seat. It was heavy paper ripped from a book, recycled and textured like cloth—the same paper from Lori's journal. He unfolded it.
Take her home, Owen.
Take her to the lake.
Scrawled in Lori's hand. He stared at the words on the page until they blurred. "She knew," he said. Then he shook his head, blinked hard, and read the note again. "No. It's not possible."
But he held the evidence in his hand. Somehow Lori had written about Jo's death, and Jo had torn it out of the journal and left it on the seat for him to find, almost as if the two of them had known she would die here today.
Coincidence, he thought. If she'd made it, she would have folded this up and tucked it away for tomorrow, or the next day.
Owen peered back at the darkened house.
He'd left Jo on her bed, not knowing what to do about her. He'd considered calling the police, but even without his blood, evidence of him having been there was all over that house; he'd touched just about everything—especially Jo. He thought about burying her in the yard, but since she'd been ready to sell, she obviously hadn't wanted to spend the rest of her life there, let alone eternity. He'd struggled over the decision for a long time before electing to leave her there, just for the night. Until he'd laid Crouch and the Blessed Trinity to rest once and for all.
Now, the choice was clear: he had to bring her to the lake.
And hand her over to Crouch? You've gotta be crazy.
What other choice is there?
His shadow stretched out long and gauzy before him under the fat, bright moon, leading the way to the house, which seemed to sigh as he opened the front door. He'd turned off all the lights on his way out. Lit by the moon, long shadows drew across the living room. The refrigerator ticked and rattled in the kitchen. He felt along the wall for the switch, and flicked it on, expecting Crouch and the Blessed Trinity to be standing in his way, but the house was empty.
He padded up the steps to the back room. Jo still lay exactly where he'd left her. Some part of him had expected to find her sitting in front of the vanity by the window, peering at him in the mirror, to be sitting on the edge of the bed, patting the bedspread with a sly grin. He wasn't sure if in these fantasies he'd thought of her as dead or still living; in either case, the thought was morbid.
Not that what he was about to do wasn't equally gruesome, though he supposed undertakers did it several times each day. He slipped his hands under her arms and hoisted her up, so that, to an outsider, it might look as if they'd been dancing and she'd passed out drunk or exhausted in his arms. She was dry now, and still smelled clean, her hair slightly fruity under his nose. Decay hadn't yet begun, and he was grateful for that. If it had, he didn't think he could manage what needed to be done. He wondered idly how long it would take, and supposed she'd be in the lake long before the worst of it began.
Getting her down the stairs took a bit of work, but he managed it without hitting her head on anything, or tripping over her dangling legs. He remembered once having to carry Allison up to bed after she'd had too much to drink; the feeling was remarkably similar, enough that he could easily imagine Jo was just sleeping.
"'Do not weep,'" Owen grunted, while the toes of Jo's bare feet dragged along the hall floor toward the front door, "'for she is not dead but sleeping.'"
The minister had recited this phrase from The Gospel of Luke at Lori's funeral. Owen thought he understood it now. It wouldn't bring her back to him, it didn't diminish the pain of his loss, but he recognized the need for a sense that this life was not the end, that there was more to us than flesh and blood and breath. He felt Jo with him, not the dead woman in his arms but the fiery spirit she'd been. He felt her as a presence very close by, not in his mind but in his heart. He felt her with him.
Owen hoisted Jo's lifeless remains onto a knee, to open the front door, and flicked off the living room lights. Out on the porch, with Jo resting in the patio swing, he took one last look at the darkened house, feeling suddenly and desperately alone. Her spirit, her soul, whatever it was he'd felt inside had left him. Just the cool night breeze now, and the trees, and a lonely, unhappy man with a dead woman sitting awkwardly on a patio swing.
Jo's spirit had moved on.
3
He laid her remains out on the dock, and the boards gently rocked her to a current from out in the main bay. He thought of their first night together, how she'd been swimming nude and beckoned him in. Hard to believe that was just two nights ago, he thought, and he slipped down into the water up to his hips, a perfect depth for Immersion. From there, he drew Jo into his arms. Her lower half splashed heavily off the dock, her cold arms slumped over his shoulders.
Owen waded her out into deeper water, out beyond the low pine boughs to where Brother Woodrow and the Blessed Trinity had performed her baptism. He had to get her out of the bay and into the lake or she'd float up on shore in front of Fisherman's Wharf. She might still, but an attempt had to be made. Jo's legs wanted to float, stretching out in front of them while he trudged along the mucky bottom. It unnerved him, felt unnatural. He was in up to his shoulders before he let her go.
Jo floated a moment, skin so pale under the moon, stark white against the black water surrounding her. Then, ever so slowly, she began to descend. Owen stepped back to watch her slip away into the darkness, into her watery grave. Home, at last.
CHAPTER 14
His Father's House Has Many Rooms
1
STANDING UP TO HIS KNEES in the water, Owen looked out over the bay for a long time. Somewhere out there the church beckoned. He wondered if it would ever be over, or if it would just go on until every one of them had been sucked kicking and screaming into the water.
This damned lake, he thought. It's taken all the wrong people, all the innocents. If I could go back and change it … if I could tell my mother to turn the car around… if she'd just let him take me… But then Lori never would have been born… Better that she'd lived and died, than never lived at all… I'm the one who should have never been born… I'm the one who's never had a reason to live.
"Take me," he said aloud. "Come on, Crouch, take me. It's me you want, so let's finish this right now. Take me." He splashed a fist weakly into the water. "Fucking take me!"
> The shout returned to him in an echo from across the bay. It felt stupid, senseless, standing in water up to his waist, shouting curses at a man who'd been dead almost as long as his son had been alive. If Crouch was out there tonight, the man had turned a deaf ear toward him. Owen supposed he should have been used to being ignored by his father by now, anyway.
Owen trudged out of the lake reluctantly, still eager to confront Crouch. He considered taking the boat out to the church, but even though the moon would light his way, it was much too dark to do any good under the water. Lori's journal, open on the coffee table, drew his attention, but he couldn't bring himself to read more tonight. It was too late for anything but sleep, and he was just tired enough that he thought he could manage to get some.
He dragged himself pathetically upstairs, lay down, and drew the sheet up to his chin. Within minutes, he was out.
Something awoke him from a deep, dark and dreamless sleep. The bedroom was dead dark. A voice—he was sure that was what he'd heard, whether it was someone else's voice or his own, he couldn't be sure. As always, the clock said 2:06.
He rolled over beneath the sheet and smacked his lips, blinking out into the dim moonlight in the hall before realizing someone was standing in the doorway, blocking his view.
"Jo…" he breathed. She came back…
She stood over him, smiling her dimpled smile, her baptismal robe—the same Lori had worn in his dream—still wet, clinging to her curves. When he met her dark eyes, they were rimmed with gold that sparkled in the glimmer of the moon.
"You found the note," she said. Her voice was different—seemed only half there, as if her words were swimming up from a great darkness, from some dark, unknowable void.
He nodded, unable to speak. All he could manage was a cracked breath.
"It was sweet, what you did," she told him in her ethereal voice. "Playing my parents' song. Taking me to the lake. What you said about death."
Her words sent a shiver of pleasure up his spine. "You heard me?"
She ignored the query. "Owen, the truth is so much worse than we thought," she said, urgency in her ghostly voice. "Howard told you nothing but lies."
Owen sat up in bed, letting the sheet gather in his lap. "No more stories, Jo. Please. My head's all muddled up with them. I just want to remember."
"Everett can help you remember," she said with a patient smile. "It's what he's wanted from the beginning. For you to open your eyes. For you to see the truth."
"How do you know all this?"
"Because you brought me home," she said. "I'm with them now. We're all together. Your sister's there, too."
"Lori…"
"And Howie. I know it's difficult for you to believe, but your father only ever wanted to help you. It's Woodrow who wanted you dead. Because he knew you'd take Everett away from him. He knew you'd be your father's savior."
Everything pointed to Woodrow: Crouch's letters, his mother comparing the man to Rasputin, Jo's story about the day her parents died. On his first day here, the backwoods pastor had drawn Owen into the water, he'd almost gotten him under, but he'd sensed the truth despite the bearded man's lies and twinkling-eyed smile. If he truly was the dark mastermind behind the curtain, pulling Crouch's strings, Owen needn't fear Crouch, so long as Woodrow wasn't around. If, as his mother seemed to think, Woodrow had drowned with Crouch, how could he know when Crouch was in charge and Woodrow wasn't? They'd already switched places once. What would stop them from doing it again?
Lori, he thought. Howie and Jo. If they're down there with him, maybe they can talk sense into him.
It was a big if, but worth considering.
"What does he want?" Owen said.
"He wants you to come with me. To the lake."
"You trust him?"
"I trust them. It's Brother Woodrow you can't trust. He's down there, too. But he's sleeping. When Crouch is awake, Woodrow sleeps. That's how it's always been."
Angels and demons, Owen thought; good spirits and evil. And if the Bible is right, it's not Jo's ghost talking to me, pushing me toward the lake, but a spirit being. The question is, who's sitting at the head of the table: God or the Devil?
"I'll protect you," Jo said. She held out a hand to him, palm up.
"My head hurts," he said. The coils squeaked as he rose from the bed and took the hand she offered. It was surprisingly warm, delicate and light. "I'm tired of all of this, Jo. I just want it to be over."
"I know." Even her breath was warm in his ear. "You're so close to the end now. Can you feel it?"
He could. "Let's just go," he said. The carpet was wet at his feet. This didn't surprise him, either. "Let's get it over with. Before I lose my nerve."
"That's the spirit," she said, and smirked at the unintended pun. She drew him to the hall, down the stairs, through the living room, and around the chimney to the open back door. Passing through the darkened house, he was reminded of the dream he'd had of Crouch, when the Blessed Trinity had risen, dead and bloated, from their tomb below, and Woodrow had shown him the Mystery.
"You're going to need this," Jo said, pointing to his wetsuit on the patio railing.
"Where are we going?"
"You know where."
Obediently, Owen tugged the suit on, the legs still damp and cool. He zipped up, drew on the weight belt and life vest, and hoisted the tank over his right shoulder and the mouthpiece over his left. Jo had already taken the stairs, and she stood on the path below, waiting. He came to her side. Her robe trailed behind her down the path to the lake, slightly too long, effulgent under the moon. Owen followed a short distance behind. Whatever she was now, ghost or angel (Or demon, a small, paranoid voice whispered in his mind), the way she'd touched him, the way the pine needles dragged along in the wake of her robe, she seemed real.
It's the water. Look what it did for Crouch. He'd found the Fountain of Youth, all he had to do was die. Drown yourself in Chapel Lake and you, too, can live forever!
Owen didn't find the thought amusing, or very helpful.
Jo looked back over her shoulder at the dock. He noticed, as she moved toward the boat, that at least one thing proved she wasn't entirely there: the dock never moved under her feet. Not once did her presence disrupt the water.
He crossed the ramp, the dock bounding up and down with each step, creaking on its hinges and causing ripples to radiate from the dock. Jo had climbed into the boat, and now she looked up at him expectantly from the front seat. He stepped in, sat in the driver's seat, then turned to her.
"Well?" she said.
"I have something to say, but I don't want to upset you."
"You want to know if you can trust me," she said.
He nodded. "How can I be sure?"
She seemed to think about this for a moment, then shrugged. "You'll just have to take it on faith, I guess. Faith doesn't look for proof."
It didn't matter. Owen had already decided he would follow her just about anywhere.
He started the boat.
2
Out in the main bay, there wasn't a single boat in sight. The stars and moon were obscured by a scud of thick, dark clouds. The lake was a sheet of black. The boat engine seemed incredibly loud as it cut through the silence. Owen held a flashlight under his arm as he drove, making Jo's robe shine as bright as a comet against the dark. Every so often, she turned with a tender smile, pointing the way with hand signals.
Finally, she shouted over the roar of the engine, "Here!"
"I see it!" Owen cried back, finally locating the steeple rising from the gloom ahead, darker than the night itself. He cut the motor and looked off toward the bright dots of light on the shore, white in the windows, the orange of bonfires, and wondered if anyone had heard her voice, or just his reply.
Owen paddled the rest of the way to the dock, silent for the most part, the oar cutting through water as flat as glass, occasionally scraping against the side. He secured the boat to the dock and stood.
"This is where we pa
rt ways," Jo said.
"You're not coming with me?"
She shook her head with another patient smile. "This is your Mystery, Owen. I've already met mine."
"What—?" In that moment, he wasn't sure what he'd meant to ask, but she interrupted him before he could finish.
"Some other time, maybe."
"I'll see you again?"
"Of course you will." She took his hand, turned it palm-up, and kissed it gently. Her lips were warm, soft, wet—not the cold, stiff flesh of the dead. "You said it yourself, Owen: death is not the end."
He hadn't believed it before, had spoken it as if to convince himself of its truth in a time of shattering grief. But while she held his hand against her smooth, tender palm, almost as light as air, it was difficult not to accept the truth. Jo was dead, yet here she sat. Whether or not blood flowed through her veins, she was as real as the cool night air kissing his cheeks and rustling his hair, as the scent of pines and wood smoke and fresh water it carried, as the tin boat rocking under his feet. And the love he felt radiating from her—toward her—that was real, too.
"What?" she asked with a playful smirk, as if reading something in his eyes.
"I was just thinking," he said. "I guess maybe I love you."
Jo laughed. It carried in the silence. Out in the dark, a loon called back. "I guess maybe I love you, too," she said.
"Take it on faith."
She smiled. "Take it on faith," she agreed.
He kissed her forehead. Even though it reminded him of doing the same on her deathbed, it felt pleasant this time, to smell her clean skin and the lavender in her hair one last time.
"I guess I should go," he said.
"Good luck."
He climbed out onto the dock and sat down on the edge to don the rest of his equipment, until he finally plunged his flippers into the still water. She twiddled her fingers at him, and he returned the gesture. Then he slipped into the black waters of Chapel Lake for the last time.
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