“So . . .” I wrap my arms across myself. “How does a flood of memories destroy an entire town?”
Cassie glances down, but not before I see something in her gaze cloud over. “No one’s experienced this thing for decades. Not even our neighbors. It’s possible that along the way, something changed. All I know is that what I saw wasn’t here for our stories. They were here to swallow us whole.”
I cross my arms tight. “So what happens at the end of your prophecy?”
An odd expression freezes on her face. But slowly it melts into her serene smile. “Well. Let’s not overwhelm you more than we already have.”
Her phone buzzes, and whatever’s on the screen catches her full attention—the sudden, powerful shiver that passes through me goes unnoticed. As she taps out what sounds like a novel-length response, I reach my plastic fork into the container and slice off the tip of the blueberry mint pie.
“I told you. Nectar of the gods,” Cassie says. When I glance up, she’s pocketed her phone already. “You’re going to get much further in this town if you start trusting me, Rose.”
I smile weakly. “And do you trust me?”
She smiles back, though her eyes narrow. “Ask again later.”
“So you can’t tell by looking at me?” I ask. Her eyes narrow some more, but I’m being sincere this time. Mostly.
“That’s the trouble with prophecy,” she says slowly. “You never know what comes before. But whether I trust you or not, my plan is still the same. How about you?”
I drive the fork into the crust and give it a twist. “I need to see that radio station.”
“I can arrange that,” she says.
“And I need to know how that message was playing,” I say. “Do you think one of your neighbors had anything to do with it?”
“Don’t know,” Cassie says. “But we could figure it out, if you work with me.”
I already regret this. But. “Then I guess I’m working with you.”
Her smile goes a little crooked again, like it did when I offered her the water this morning. “Don’t sound too excited.”
And then, weirdly enough, I laugh. “It’s not you, exactly. It’s—I have post-traumatic stress disorder. There’s not a whole lot that I trust right now.”
Wow. I said it. I said it like it was easy. It’s not until the seconds after that it feels like I’ve thrown a Molotov cocktail into the conversation.
Cassie doesn’t react like I did, though. She inclines her head in a half nod. “Then I’ll do my best to be trustworthy,” she says. “If that’s enough.”
“Yeah,” I manage as my heart starts to slow. “That’s plenty.”
I cheated, though. I told her one truth to avoid another. I need to see that station. And then, if I can, I am getting out of this town.
“Anyway,” Cassie says, breezing on, “that was Alex texting. The sheriff’s going to be back very late. She says you should get a full night’s sleep and see her tomorrow morning.”
It doesn’t occur to me until just then that I could really use that. I smother a yawn.
“I’m sorry to drag her back from her trip,” I say, if only because it seems polite.
“Oh, don’t be.” Cassie smiles thinly. “She was looking for you. She goes out there every year, every day from Christmas to New Year’s. Trying to find you before you find us.”
Catching the look on my face, she shrugs. “On the bright side, she doesn’t have to look anymore. Come on. I’ll show you where you’re staying.”
“I passed the motel on my way here,” I say, gathering up my things from the steps.
“Oh, you won’t be in the motel.” Cassie gently dislodges the backpack from my shoulder and slides it over her own. At the look on my face, her own darkens. “Trust me. You’re not going to want to stay in town. And if at all possible, try not to talk to anyone without Sheriff Jones or me there, okay? You never know where someone stands.”
She’d said something like that to those men in the diner, too. And if I really have brought something terrible, where they stand makes complete sense.
It’s where Cassie stands that I don’t get.
“Don’t worry,” she says. “It’s a little unorthodox, but you’ll have a lot of space. Now—”
She doesn’t finish. Her head moves a little to the left, and her eyes widen, as if catching something over my shoulder. Taking my hand, she tugs me around a corner and into a little walkway between two buildings.
My head whips back to the road, at whatever it was she saw. The red town car squealing up to a halt along the diner’s back parking lot doesn’t look like cause for concern. But until we hear the door open, close, and the click of heeled footsteps up the diner’s stairs, Cassie’s completely still.
“We’ll take the back way.” She still sounds cheerful, if much, much quieter now. “Come on.”
“What was that?” I hiss.
“Don’t worry about it,” Cassie says. That could refer to any of the four or five worrisome things that just happened, but. Sure.
Cassie’s back stays turned as I follow her—she doesn’t try any further conversation. And without her laser focus on me, I can think.
Three days until this town will, supposedly, cease to exist. And I’m not sure Theresa would consider that a good reason for a rush job on my car. I walked to the highway once, I guess I could do it again—see if I could flag someone down. My phone is in my pocket, still about 30 percent charged. But calling my mother, explaining to her why I’m here, would be a bell I couldn’t unring. That’s the nuclear option.
But I’ll worry about that when I get there. The station comes first. That message comes first.
Whether Cassie can see the future or not, one thing is true either way. New Year’s Day will be one year to the day since Gaby ceased to exist, too.
And Cassie has no way of knowing that.
* * *
—
NOTE TO SELF: If someone tells you that you’re going to stay somewhere “unorthodox,” ask, no matter how distracted you are. Because if you don’t, you’re going to spend the night in a strong contender for Creepiest Place in Town.
Cassie was right, though. I definitely have space. The model house in the Lethe Ridge housing development is bigger than anything I’ll ever own. Bigger than anything I’ll ever rent, probably. If I get into Stanford, I’ll be paying off student loans until I die.
I push the door shut behind me, and it glides back into the door jamb with the lightest click. A dark, symmetrical room sprawls out ahead of me, all reds and oranges and angular shadows.
I hit the lights. The shadows retreat through the polished floorboards. But aside from that, not much changes.
I move quickly and quietly, flicking every switch from the cheery yellow kitchen to the wood-paneled home office, opening door after door. With every switch flipped, I look over my shoulder again. Sutton Avenue’s not there. Or it hasn’t caught up to me yet.
The deepest breath I can take keeps inching farther and farther up my throat. Which is funny, because I didn’t think I was afraid of the dark. But it’s hard to keep track of all the things I’m afraid of now. I’m going to have to start a list.
From the end of the hallway, I have a good view of every room. So I slow down, and I take a look.
I survey the bedrooms: one with a kid-size bed and light-up crayons on the walls, and one with the same blue-striped sheets that all my rich friends seem to have in their guest rooms. But if I’m going to play house for a couple of days, I might as well sleep in the master bedroom.
I turn to the door behind me. And it’s closed.
I stop short. My bag’s already halfway off my shoulder, but I push it back slowly. I opened this door, I think. I should have opened all of them.
Did I, though? This room is at the very end of the hallway, so i
t should have been the last one I checked, but I have no memory of seeing it.
With unsteady fingers, I gently push it open. The lights are still off. When I flick the switch, I look closely this time. I check the walk-in closet, the bathroom suite. But it’s just me.
Me, and anything that followed me in.
“You don’t know that,” I whisper to myself. But I do, don’t I? I can dismiss Sutton Avenue as a product of my imagination. I can dismiss what Cassie said, if I try hard enough. But Alex Harper looked behind me, and he saw something, too.
And besides. Hypervigilance has given me what must be the worst superpower ever: somehow these days, I can feel when someone’s moving behind me, even when they don’t make a sound. Like the air itself is shifting.
I thought it was just the unease. But these past few hours, I’ve become steadily aware of something stirring, just over my shoulder. I feel it even now. With my back to a wall.
I make a quick mental list. One front door, heavy, triple-locked. One back door, sliding glass, an open fishbowl view for anyone who wants to look—but as locked as I can get it. No attic. No basement. And not many places to hide.
I backtrack to the living room and crawl onto the couch, watching the hallway behind me in the reflection of the TV. And for the first time since I left my car last night, everything is still.
The couch cushions are stiff, and I can feel every beat of my pulse pounding against them. Through my ribs, through my back, through my head. Before last May, I don’t remember being that aware of the motions of my heartbeat. Now everything I do, from the way I stand to the position I sleep in, feels like an effort to contain it.
And besides. Times like these, when I’m just sitting here, can be the worst of any of it. I waste half of my day wishing things would be this quiet, and when it finally comes, it doesn’t feel that peaceful. It feels like waiting.
I uncurl my clenched fingers and pull my shoulders down and back. I try to clear my mind and breathe, like Maurice taught me.
I make it about two minutes.
“Shit.” I dig through my pocket until I unearth my sad, cracked phone, and I scroll through my voicemails. I was hoping never to listen to this again. But okay, universe. Fine.
Very gently, I tap Gaby’s name. And I let it happen.
There are little details that the radio broadcast missed. I knew that, of course. For the first two weeks, I must have listened to her voicemail every day.
I half expect it to end differently here, in this empty neighborhood, in this symmetrical house. It’s almost a disappointment when nothing’s changed at all.
Rose? Are you there? And then a boy’s voice behind her, asking her a question, and a little rustle, as if Gaby turns toward him. And this is when she hangs up.
As always, the boy’s words are hard to make out. But I know what he’s asking. I’ve known for months.
Need a ride?
Gaby and I had a scary amount in common. Our dead fathers. Our iron-willed mothers. Our grandmothers growing up just minutes apart without ever meeting, and our stepfathers sliding into our lives before we knew much else. And for all our personalities could be different—Gaby was outgoing, outspoken, thrived on debate—in that moment, it didn’t matter. When you’re alone, and tired, and stranded, and a boy offers you a ride, you say yes, because you don’t know how he’s going to react to no.
To be fair, I don’t think Gaby was afraid of what would happen when she got into his car. I think she just didn’t like him.
My phone buzzes in my hands, a pinpoint hit to my startle reflex. It takes a second to hold the text steady enough to read.
Let me know if you need anything—Cassie
An ellipsis pops up. Then another text.
Or if you’re just bored, I guess.
I laugh shakily, tap out a will do. And before I put my phone down, I add Cassie Cyrene to my contacts.
I should sleep. That seems like the most sensible idea. But as many nights as I’ve spent lying awake, wishing my upstairs neighbors would shut the entire hell up, I think I’ve actually found somewhere that’s too quiet.
I try the remote, not expecting anything. But it flips on to a woman’s smiling face.
The background shivers behind her, like movement trying to break through. The words are garbled, the feed jerky and unnatural, like a stream that’s still buffering.
I change the channel. This one’s playing smoothly, but it’s hard to tell until I turn up the volume to hear the soft, trancelike soundtrack. The image of the dusk-lit playground looks still, at first, but when I look closer, I can see the swing rocking gently, on its own.
White words swim into view: What do you yearn for?
Unnerved, I flip forward again.
You might say, “But, Joe, they don’t understand our ‘human laws,’” booms the man on camera, finger-quoting the last two words. I say, they can learn! If you’ve got a neighbor-related property dispute—
Pulling a face, I flip forward one more time. But it looks like all I’ve got for channels is this public access hellscape—I’m back to the smiling woman from the start, her blonde waves just so, her teeth glinting as brightly as her pearls. This time, the signal comes through:
Some will tell you I’m questioning our values. She walks toward the camera down the length of a storefront. I’m here to tell you: I believe in Lotus Valley. I believe in the values it was built on.
Her smile still hasn’t shifted. But lines form around her mouth, thinning her cheeks. What I do not believe in? Prioritizing the comfort of our neighbors over the safety of our citizens. Prioritizing ideals over human residents like you. It’s your turn to be prioritized, Lotus Valley. I don’t stand for some academic idea of our town. I stand for reality. I stand for you.
And next time someone tells you I’d like to change what we are, feel free to tell them: They’re right. Because when you love something, you change it for the better.
The woman disappears, and a message takes her place. REELECT MARGUERITE WILLIAMS: YOUR FRIEND, YOUR ADVOCATE, YOUR MAYOR!
The text fades, and at length, so does the music. And gradually, the screen transitions into what looks like the slow pan of a camera down a sunlit, empty Morningside Drive. next programming: eight a.m., reads a card at the bottom of the screen.
The camera curls down a side road into a neighborhood dotted with trim, vibrant green grass. It languidly loops into a cul-de-sac. And there’s a sudden, inexplicable jolt through me.
My heart’s still reeling even after I hit the power button. It’s not unusual for my overtired, overtaxed, hypervigilant brain to jump at something I haven’t consciously registered. But it’d be nice, once in a while, if it could tell me what it was so scared of.
The residual light and static fade from the screen, and only my own reflection, my blank, tired stare, is left for company.
And I sit up. I had left the master bedroom door wide open before. But in the reflection over my shoulder, it stands just slightly ajar.
Before I can turn around, the house starts to shake.
Whatever it is, it’s loud, loud enough that my hands immediately clamp down over my ears. For a long, earth-rocking moment, it’s hard to distinguish anything but a pulsing thump, thump, thump. I almost don’t recognize it as music.
Someone is playing music down the street. Blasting music, actually.
Someone else is here.
Like I said. There is a front door made of heavy wood. There is a back door made of sliding glass. There are windows I could probably fit through, closets I could duck inside. But very few places to hide.
And besides. I want to know what’s coming.
I take a breath, hold it. And I ease open the front door. Even over the music, every creak of the wood echoes.
I should be looking at the front steps. Except they aren’t there anymore.
And neither is the Lethe Ridge housing development.
Before I can think better of it, I’m through the entryway and across the porch.
A chipped set of stone steps leads me down to a street that couldn’t look less like Lethe Ridge—an asymmetrical suburbia worn around the edges. There’s trees, and grass, and one lit house, and its windows rattle with the beat of the music. It doesn’t take me long to recognize it. I’ve been to enough parties at Marin Levinson’s house that I would have recognized it from the sound system alone.
Marin graduated last year. She went to Sarah Lawrence, and her parents still live in San Diego. I’m going to take a wild guess that they didn’t buy an identical house in Middle of Nowhere, Nevada.
My heart flutters. But I take a long, controlled breath, and I focus. Whatever this is, it isn’t new anymore. Panicking isn’t going to help. But getting a good look around might.
I turn in a slow circle as I walk. The houses around me, even the one I just came from, look darker and flatter than Marin’s. Like someone etched every loving detail into re-creating the Levinson house and didn’t save any effort for the rest. Still, I watch those dull, lifeless doors closely as I pass them.
By the time I make it to the bottom of Marin’s steps, my lungs feel tight and shallow. The lowest notes of the music rattle the pit of my stomach.
I should run. Never mind that there’s nowhere to go.
I start to climb the front steps instead. Except I don’t get the chance.
The door swings open hard enough that it hits the side of the house and bounces back to the girl halfway through it. Her head snaps to the sound, and she grabs it with a sharp punch of an exhale, pushing it off her as she stumbles through. She hits the railing and grabs on with both hands, breathing hard as she bends over double. Her blank stare, fixed on the steps, goes right through me.
“Oh,” I breathe. Because even with her hair covering her face, it’s not hard to recognize myself. Me, over seven months ago.
MAY 24, SEVEN MONTHS AGO
The Valley and the Flood Page 5