All the Lonely People

by Jen Marie Hawkins

  “I’m not flustered.” I say this even as I try to extinguish the flames on my cheeks.

  “Some unsolicited advice,” he says, quieter now. “Don’t let him pressure you.”

  I shove him before my brain approves it. He looks surprised at first, but then grins.

  “My God,” I grumble. “Did Mons read the whole conversation?”

  “It shocked me, too. I didn’t even know Mons could read.”

  We both laugh. The tension in the air dissipates a little.

  “Look,” he adds, “stand your ground. If your dad were here, he’d probably say something like that.”

  The mention of Pop is an unexpected jab. He has no right to assume what Pop would or wouldn’t say when he didn’t even know him. “Oh, are you my dad now? Or anybody’s dad, for that matter?”

  He blinks at me. “Well, no. But—”

  “Thank you for the advice,” I say, narrowing my eyes. “But I’ve already heard the abstinence speech from church ladies and my mother and all her co-workers.”

  I have no intention of telling Henry about Dylan and me, or the fact that it’s too late now to take his decent advice.

  “You’re awfully knotty today. More so than usual.”

  I ignore him.

  He soldiers on, though. “I’d think you’d be in a great mood, since your luggage finally arrived.”

  I cut my eyes at him. He chews on his cheek, suppressing a grin.

  “What are you studying at Bristol again?” I ask, unruffled. “Espionage?”

  He gives me a sheepish grin and a shrug. “You’re the one who lurks outside doors.”

  “Looks marvelous!” George blessedly interrupts, walking over with an armload of albums. “Henry, could you set it there, by the front window?” Henry does as he asks.

  “When are you leaving for Bristol?” George asks him.

  “Tonight. Hopefully back by the weekend.”

  “Make sure your dorm transfer is squared away,” George says. “You’ve a little under a month before classes begin.”

  I stack albums on the newly built shelf, trying to ignore the submerging sensation that coincides with the news that Henry’s leaving.

  “I will. And don’t forget Zara is coming by tomorrow to pick up prints.”

  “I won’t forget,” George says to him, then elbows me as he bends down to help me stack inventory. “What are your plans for next weekend?”

  My brows furrow. “Next weekend?”

  “We’re closed up for inventory on solstice weekend. I have a hired crew coming in for fiscal year counts. Your mum said you’d be doing some exploring then. Visiting schools, yes?”

  I mentally scroll a calendar and recall my plans.

  “Oh. Yes, I’m taking a day trip to Liverpool. Touring Hope University.”

  “Ah, Liverpool. Beatles tour while you’re there?”

  I nod. “I have this photo project to do for school, so I’m going to practice taking pictures there.”

  “Perhaps Henry can give you some pointers. He’s a photographer, you know.”

  Henry gives me an indecipherable look. “Where in Liverpool?”

  “Well,” I start. “Penny Lane is a given. And Strawberry Field.”

  “Of course.” George smiles. For the first time, I notice his aura. It’s yellow at the center, but with a big band of murky brown around it. Troubled.

  I fiddle with my hands. “I’ll definitely see Eleanor Rigby’s grave at St. Peter’s, too.”

  “Oh, that’s a good one,” George says. “I’ve never been. But I’ve heard it’s quite spooky.”

  I swallow the lump in my throat and it plunks into my belly like a stone. George stands from where he was kneeling and brushes off the front of his pants. “You know, they say Paul and John wrote that song without ever knowing the grave existed. Right there in the graveyard of the church where they met.”

  “Conspiracy,” Henry says. “They planned it all. Media manipulation.”

  George rolls his eyes. “He’s such a negative Ned, isn’t he?”

  “My pop died the same day as her. October 10th. 79 years later.”

  He’s quiet a moment as he straightens a shelf. “Oh.”

  I shrug. “Coincidence, probably.”

  Sympathy registers on George’s face. Henry stares at the floor. I guess I’m a Negative Ned, too. Because I’ve gone and made it awkward.

  * * *

  Chapter 23

  : I’ve Got a Feeling :

  THE SUMMER BEFORE I started sixth grade, Mom and Pop moved us into a two-bedroom townhouse close to downtown Asheville.

  It was closer to the hospital for Mom than our cabin in Mills River, and since Pop was gone so often with the band, he agreed to anything that made life easier for her. They didn’t ask me my opinion about the move. I had to change schools—which was completely traumatic at the time. After a failed runaway attempt—that time when I rode my bike across the highway—I decided I’d confine myself to the back porch and stay mad at them until I could move out. Seemed like a completely reasonable plan at the time.

  One day, a Frisbee sailed over the fence into our small yard. Two girls showed up at the gate moments later to retrieve it. Instead of thanking me for handing it for them, the one with darkest hair openly studied me.

  “Are you the new neighbor?”

  I nodded.

  “Come over and play.” It wasn’t a question. She just opened the gate for me, and I went.

  Lexie and Maddie and me were like that from then on. There was never a question.

  As I scroll social media, looking at all the pictures Lexie uploaded to Instagram, emptiness crawls into all my corners.

  There are hiking selfies from the parkway of Maddie and Lexie and Patrick and Mama. Then there’s another of all of them, plus Dylan, minus Mama, in front of the French Broad River Rafting Center. Still more with Lexie and Maddie and Patrick at the ice cream shop, wet-haired and all smiles after their rafting trip. Patrick fits in like he belongs. Maybe it’s just like that with Lexie and Maddie, no matter who you are. It’s impossible not to love them both.

  I can’t shake the feeling that I’m letting them both down now. By being so far away, by keeping their respective secrets, by not yelling at them both to focus on something besides whatever guy they’re fighting over this time.

  A quick knock on the door rouses me from my pity party. I sit up and smooth my hair behind my ear, and Henry steps through the cracked doorway. My nerves ricochet.

  “Hey, I’m heading out,” he says, eyes darting around, “but in case I don’t see you before you leave for Liverpool, I thought maybe you’d like to borrow this.” He drops a spiral-bound book on Patrick’s desk. I pick it up to get a better look. The front cover is a glossy map of England. It’s like one of the fancy travel guides you get in visitor centers.

  “An atlas?” I turn it over in my hands. It’s a little heavier than I expected.

  “Sort of,” he says, running a hand through his hair and leaving it sticking up in ten different directions, which definitely doesn’t do things to me. “It’s an atlas, yes, but of ley lines. Throughout Britain.”

  I flip it open. There are large scale maps, and behind those, smaller breakdowns of each area covered. There are additional annotated notes on every page in compact, precise handwriting, and marker-drawn lines plotted between points like a graph.

  “Wow,” I say, gently turning the worn pages. “Thank you.”

  “No problem.”

  We stand there for a moment, not talking. At least not out loud. There are indecipherable conversations going on between our eyes.

  Henry grabs the doorknob and takes a few steps backwards.

  “All right, then. See you later.”

  “See ya,” I mumble, and look back down at the atlas. Henry is the only person in the world who knows the real reason I’m going to Liverpool.

  And instead of trying to talk me out of it, he’s trying to help me.

  : :
: : :

  * * *

  Seagulls squawk overhead, and I take a deep breath and inhale the salty breeze.

  The rain is inevitable, certain, looming at any moment, but I move forward—away from any possible shelter. My footfalls thud gently over sodden boards. Between the cracks, thirty feet below, the sea is a dark, choppy mirror of the sky. Other people pass me on the pier, but I don’t see their faces. I only see one man, to my left, near the iron railing. He’s old and hunched over, gray hair sparse in the front and long in the back, and his brown trench coat is tattered at the edges. He stoops down and unbuckles a music case, then pulls out a violin. I stop to watch him, glancing up at the sky, anticipating the drops I know are coming.

  He pulls a bow over the strings. The melody is familiar. Cheerful.

  Here Comes the Sun.

  It’s such an antithesis of the sky that I laugh. I hear my own laughter, the way it stirs the air far away. It doesn’t feel real. I’m light as helium, floating, a balloon on a string. Somewhere behind me, a muffled voice says, “Ta-da!”

  I laugh again, and the string that tethers me snips. It sounds like a text message coming through—a familiar click.

  That’s what wakes me up.

  * * *

  Chapter 24

  : Searchin’ :

  WITHOUT HENRY, THINGS are busier.

  Maybe he works more than I’ve noticed. Once the shipment is unloaded and the customers have filed out, George leans on the counter and sighs.

  “So. Have you visited any of the universities in London yet?”

  There’s something about the way he says it, the overly casual way he looks at me as he scrutinizes one of the ignored action items on my London itinerary. It isn’t a George question. It’s a Kristina question.

  “Did my mother put you up to asking?”

  He creases his eyebrows and makes an offended tsk. He starts to say something—a denial maybe—but then thinks better of it and changes direction.

  “Your mother adores you, Jo.”

  I grit my teeth. Rather than talking to me, she prefers to have her friend watch me and report back. I’m certain that’s why George had Henry follow me to the Crow, now that I think about it.

  “Adoration in the form of spying is always my favorite.”

  George sighs. “She isn’t spying on you. She’s checking in.”

  “With you. Not me.”

  “It’s hard for her not to talk to you.”

  “Which was her idea.”

  “She’s giving you space.”

  “Is she, though?”

  George sets down the stack of albums he’s collected from the listening center. “I don’t tell her everything.”

  Record screech. This feels like a trap to get me to admit something. Definitely not falling for it.

  “I haven’t done anything I wouldn’t tell her about.”

  George quirks a brow. “Nothing?”

  “Nope.”

  “Not even drink so much you get sick on the street?”

  I stare at him, wondering why Henry would’ve told him about that. Especially after all the sneaking around and tiptoeing and apologizing that night. I let the anger simmer for a minute before I say anything.

  “Okay. Maybe not that.”

  “Nigel told me, by the way,” George says, as if he’s read my mind. “Henry tells me nothing.”

  Oh.

  “Nigel knew my dad,” I say.

  George turns the depth of his gaze on me now, a sincere look in his eyes. “I absolutely hate that you lost your father. It’s miserably unfair.”

  I take a deep breath. George knows all about unfair, too, I remind myself.

  “But go easy on your mum, okay? She worries about you. We all worry, as parents. I worry about Henry. But I can’t talk to him about it or he gets defensive. And he stays angry with me.” He dumps the records into their respective shelf space and returns to the register. He punches a few buttons to zero it out.

  “I never noticed,” I say.

  His face stretches out with surprise. “Oh, you never got the perpetually angry vibe from him?”

  Okay, to be fair, yes. But I’m feeling strangely defensive on his behalf. I glance sideways at George but just shrug. His aura’s still muddy brown. Maybe he’s too wrapped up in his own struggles to understand Henry’s.

  As I’m making my way to the front of the store to lock up, a flash of yellow zips by the front of the plate-glass windows and opens the front door. I’m just about to tell the person we’re closing up when I realize it’s Zara.

  “Made it!” She looks past me, a little out of breath. “Sorry I’m so late! My evening class ran over.”

  “Come in,” George says. “I have them for you.” He digs beneath the register for the photos Henry left for her.

  “You look better than last time I saw you,” Zara whispers to me conspiratorially. “You doing okay?”

  I nod, suddenly nervous. Like I need to impress her in some way.

  “Hey, you don’t happen to know what days Saint Catherine’s does tours for prospective students, do you?”

  “Oh. I have no idea. Why? You thinking about Saint Catherine’s?” She wears a proud smirk as she says it.

  George rounds the counter with a sealed envelope marked DO NOT BEND. “Good luck with this,” he tells Zara. She takes it and thanks him.

  “Thinking about it,” I answer her question.

  “If you want to come over tomorrow around ten, I could show you around myself. I’ll be on campus and should have a break then.”

  I look at George. “What do you say?” I ask him. “Would it be all right if I come in a little later tomorrow so I can tour Saint Catherine’s in the morning?”

  George narrows his eyes at me, not at all fooled by my performance. “Of course. I think it’s a splendid idea.”

  “Here.” Zara hands me her phone. “Put your number in.”

  I do.

  “Text me later for details.”

  I lock the door behind her when she leaves with her pictures. Before I go upstairs, I turn to George.

  “Make sure you tell Mama I’m taking a private guided tour of a liberal arts university tomorrow. With a current student.” I give him a little wink.

  * * *

  : : : : :

  * * *

  In my room later, I study the atlas Henry left for me.

  I flip to the Liverpool page and read his notes again.

  Two main lines, perpendicular: Glastonbury Tor to Aberdeen, 2nd longitude W, and Tibradden (passage tomb) to Ohlsdorf (cemetery), 53rd parallel N.

  The note strikes me as familiar for some reason. I remember something about Glastonbury on his Instagram page, so I pull it up. A few moments of scrolling brings it front and center.

  I almost choke when I see the picture of Glastonbury Tor: the rolling green hillside with the perfect angle of sunlight. A tall stone tower in the background. It’s only missing a picnic blanket and two very specific people. Flashes from my dream come back to me.

  This explains why I had such a perfect visual of the place stored away in my brain: I’d seen this picture before. His caption beneath it says, “yet some men say in parts of England that King Arthur is not dead…” —Thomas Malory.

  I scroll his photos. Every single landscape picture correlates to places plotted in the atlas. Based on the dates—they go back two years—Henry has been visiting ley lines for quite some time.

  The map is color coded, and there are notes for each that list the endpoints. I try to make sense of them but can’t see exactly where they are at the street level. Frustrated, I pull up the browser on my phone and type ley lines Liverpool.

  The very first result is a link for a site called Magical Mystical Locator. The home page has an interactive map of the entire United Kingdom. I zoom in on Liverpool. Two ley lines intersect just south and inland from Liverpool, perpendicular. They appear to match Henry’s hand-plotted lines. The longitudinal line connects Glastonbury
Tor with standing stones in Aberdeen, Scotland. The latitudinal ley connects a place called Tibradden in Dublin with Ohlsdorf Cemetery in Hamburg, Germany. I skim for more information and conclude that all of these places have rich history and are shrouded in myth of the dead—or undead, as the case may be.

  I know from my amateur research that a place where two ley lines intersect is called a vortex. What that means, exactly, I don’t know. But the internet’s explanation goes something like Magic! Fantasma! Much Amaze!

  I zoom in as far as I can. The intersection occurs in a green space just beyond Church Road in Woolton.

  I pull up another browser window and put Church Road into Google maps. Zoom in. In. In. In. And oh my God, I suck all the air out of the room. It’s the road St. Peter’s church is on.

  My fingers fly furiously over the screen. I compare the two maps and zoom in to street level, to the exact location of the intersect. The screen fills with a street view outside a graveyard, a large red-brick clock tower in the background. I stare gape-mouthed, no sound but my roaring pulse.

  The vortex is in the graveyard where Eleanor Rigby’s grave is located.

  * * *

  : : : : :

  * * *

  That night, I dream of a bright green piece of paper.

  It’s folded four times, lines creased like it’s been left in a pocket too long. Maybe even put through the wash. As I’m unfolding it, one rectangle at a time, Pop’s voice whispers in my ear: It’s a good idea. But before I get the paper completely open

  to see what’s on the inside, my alarm wakes me up.

  Chapter 25

  : Tomorrow Never Knows :

  I RIDE THE train to Saint Catherine’s and meet Zara in the main student courtyard.

  She stands from her spot next to a fountain when I pass through the lumbering main gates.