She’d beat them back, revealing the weary wood of the fence. Natalie had seen the result of her daughter’s efforts. She’d seen the tangle of vine cuttings Jill had shoved into garbage bags. She’d filled four giant bags. So, what Natalie was seeing now made no sense.
The fence was no longer visible.
The vines had regrown, even thicker than before. They were a lush, green waterfall. A tsunami of leaves and berries spilling into the McCreedys’ yard.
As Natalie gawked, a tendril near her shoe uncurled. She watched it wriggle like an inchworm, shuddering forward.
This thing from Mrs. Smith’s woods was alive, and it was reaching for her.
Natalie turned and ran.
15
Una
Una surveyed the array of breakfast foods on the Bernsteins’ kitchen island. There was a bowl of Froot Loops, a square of Entenmann’s crumb cake, raisin toast slathered in cream cheese, a strawberry Pop-Tart, and a fan of cantaloupe slices. A hunk of cheese sat on the counter next to a frying pan of untouched scrambled eggs. The eggs had a rubbery sheen, and the cheese was dry and wrinkled, like an old woman’s skin.
In between a box from Dunkin’ Donuts and a mixing bowl with an oily coating of beaten eggs were cartons of orange juice and milk. In the corner, a wooden fruit bowl was stuffed with bananas, peaches, and plums.
Una would never get used to the abundance of fruit in the houses she cleaned, let alone the bounty available in every grocery store.
Shopping for fruit was a sensual experience for Una. She would push her shopping cart next to the ziggurats of apples, oranges, or lemons and just stand there, admiring the gumball-bright colors.
She’d lean over the berries, which were heaped into green pulp baskets like caskets of jewels and inhale their sweetperfume before running her palm over the smooth curve of a watermelon.
It was impossible to choose between sun-kissed apricots, succulent peaches, and fat-bottomed pears. The plump grapes that exploded in the mouth with bacchanal pleasure, or grapefruits whose pink flesh yielded when penetrated by the tip of a spoon.
Una was sad to see that the fruit in the Bernsteins’ bowl was rotting. The banana was sagging and tiny flies danced over the surface of the brown-spotted skin.
“Una?”
Elaine stood in the doorway, cradling a coffee mug. She wore a white tracksuit with blocks of blue, pink, and purple. Her face was swollen from lack of sleep and her hair looked like the fluff Una emptied from the vacuum bag.
“Why are you here?” Elaine whispered.
Una pictured the Ziggy wall calendar hanging in her kitchen, a Christmas present from Gunnar. The Bernsteins’ name was clearly written in today’s square. Elaine hadn’t swapped with Beth or Natalie. She hadn’t called to cancel. If she had, Una would’ve updated her calendar.
Confused, she said, “You don’t want me to clean?”
Elaine moved closer. “Don’t you know what happened?”
Una shook her head.
Elaine drew in a fortifying breath and released it again, very slowly. “Two boys went missing yesterday. During the regatta. Their boat... capsized. And they just—they disappeared.”
Una pictured two boys sinking. Both of them wore Svana’s face. Both of them reached out to her as they were dragged down, away from the light.
Tears leaked from Elaine’s eyes. “Charles was there. The boat the boys were in was tangled up with his boat. Then a wave separated them and carried the other boys’ boat into thefog. That’s probably why they capsized—the waves and the wind. Charles saw something—Iknowhe did. It must have been horrible because he, well, he refuses to talk.”
“How terrible.”
Elaine gestured at the dirty kitchen. “He won’t eat, either. He’s curled up in his bed facing the wall. He used to do that when he was little, after a bad dream.”
Una felt time folding in on itself. She was two people at once. She was a schoolgirl in Iceland who’d just lost her sister. She also was a cleaning woman on Long Island listening to a mother talk about her son. Fear wove her past and present together. It felt like a rope around her neck. She couldn’t find her breath.
Two boys in the water. Two boys gone. Charles saw something that scared the words out of him.
“The boat,” croaked Una. “Was it damaged?”
