Chapter Text
Chapter 8
Standing on the front step of Sam’s house, Billy feels oddly exposed, like a clandestine lover come for an assignation, shrinking under the neighbours’ gaze. He’s spent the drive over wrestling with his resolution: one minute he’s sure he’s being stupid, letting a groundless coincidence spiral into an elaborate conspiracy theory – he should just forget it, go back to his real work, Sam doesn’t need him to feed his suspicion. Yet even as he thinks it a deeper unease ticks at the back of his mind: isn’t it just too tempting to bury the anxiety, reason it away and go on with his easy life? So here he is, knocking on Sam’s door, shivering a little in the cold wind.
Sam takes his time answering but when he opens the door he doesn’t seem surprised. ‘Billy.’ He’s wearing a zip-neck sweater and chinos, a pair of glasses perched on the end of his nose, and he looks older and softer than before.
Billy shifts awkwardly; he told Ellie he was heading over, but he doubts she took the time to call. ‘I – there’s something I wanted to talk to you about.’ Sam raises an eyebrow and stands back to let him in. He nods at the coatrack before padding off to the kitchen; Billy hangs up his jacket and follows him, feeling a little more normal. ‘I was just at the school speaking to Ellie about the photography project.’
Sam slides his glasses into his pocket as he rummages for the tea. ‘She said you’d be over today – how’s that going?’
‘Coming together,’ says Billy. ‘Think we’ve hashed out a plan that’ll work.’ Now he’s here he can’t think how to broach the subject and an awkward silence falls.
As Billy hesitates, ‘This about Goody?’ Sam asks, back turned.
‘No!’ Billy sounds so alarmed at the idea that Sam smiles for the first time.
‘Just as well. What is it brings you all the way out here, then?’
Billy wraps his fingers around the mug Sam offers him. ‘It’s about the boy.’
‘The Gill boy?’ Sam looks at him evenly. ‘What about him?’ He pulls out a chair from the table and waves at Billy to sit down opposite.
‘Did you find anything?’
Sam’s brow creases. ‘You know we didn’t. Harp says he left with his father and no one’s come up with anything to prove otherwise.’
‘Teddy said that.’ Billy’s picking his way here. ‘And Leni said it about the Coulter girl too, the one at the roadhouse, but you said that wasn’t true either.’
‘Harp was adamant there was a witness to that,’ says Sam carefully. ‘Never managed to produce him, though.’
‘And Jack.’ Now it’s out in the open the words come easier. ‘Jack’s son vanished too, I saw it in the paper. The old paper,’ he clarifies, ‘in the library.’
‘Before my time.’ Sam’s always calm, but there’s a tension to his posture, his hand pressed flat on the table. ‘I was just back from college then.’
‘You must remember it, though,’ Billy insists: he can’t be put off now he’s here. ‘He went missing in the woods, like Riley, but that’s not what Bogue said happened.’
Sam’s head comes up sharply. ‘When did he say that?’
‘When we were searching, after I spoke to you – he gave me a lift back up to Jack’s. And on the way he told me Jack’s family were killed in an accident with a logging truck.’ Billy watches Sam carefully. ‘Why would he say that?’
Sam’s face closes. ‘I can’t speak for what Bogue might say or mean.’
‘You think there’s something going on, I know you do,’ Billy presses.
Sam scrutinises him, his expression studiedly neutral. ‘Because of what I said to him? It’s standard procedure.’
Billy looks him in the eye. ‘Because of what you’ve got in your study back there.’
He holds Sam’s searching look until Sam pushes back his chair. ‘Best come on through.’
He leads the way to the study: it’s as Billy remembers, the map on the corkboard surrounded by photographs and the stack of files on the desk; to one side lies what looks like a police report, CLOSED stamped across it and statement sheets stapled inside. Now he can he examines the map – small towns lost in an expanse of green, with a scatter of initials and dates marked in Sam’s precise script, and a whole list next to Rose Creek where it sits on its thread of blue. He spots JH in the woods, and along the road EC; at the bottom of the town’s list, under AM, DL and FV, RG stands out in fresh red ink.
Sam’s sat down in the chair beside the desk, steepling his fingers, expectant.
‘Something’s going on in Rose Creek.’ Billy turns from the map to look at him and Sam nods slowly.
‘Disappearances. It goes back years. No pattern to it, but all minors.’ He gestures to the files. ‘Ginny Coulter. Alison McPherson. Duncan Littler. Felix Vincent. And now Riley Gill.’
Billy’s aghast: put so baldly it’s horrifying. ‘There’s a serial killer? Why isn’t – people should be frantic.’
Sam shakes his head. ‘Not murders, we’ve never found a body or signs of violence. Children, teenagers, they just – vanish.’
‘Vanish?’ Billy echoes. ‘Why isn’t everyone talking about it?’
Sam’s stare is pointed. ‘You’ve heard Harp. Ask him, there’s nothing going on, no children disappearing – he always comes up with an explanation. Riley Gill wanted to start a new life with his dad. Allie McPherson went to stay with her aunt. Littler was on his way to college, took off early. And Ginny Coulter went to the city with some guy she met in a bar.’
‘Leni told us that when we arrived,’ Billy remembers. ‘Said her mother’s hoping she’ll come back home.’
Sam pulls one of the files towards him and takes out his glasses again. ‘Thought I was getting somewhere with her.’ He leafs through his folder to a photograph of a pretty long-haired girl. ‘Managed to get something from her sister about a place where the kids used to meet, out in the woods. Then all of a sudden Harp turned up a customer from Mitch’s who swore he saw her leave, said he’d followed the lead as far as he could, and no one wanted to press any more. And now the same thing with Riley.’ He flicks a finger at the file with the stamp on it.
Whatever Billy expected, it wasn’t this. ‘Why haven’t you called the authorities in, if someone’s making children disappear? You could take it to, I don’t know, the state police, the FBI?’ It’s surreal, all he knows about this kind of thing is what he sees on TV.
‘With what?’ Sam glares at him. ‘No bodies, families who swear their child’s just taken off somewhere else and a local police chief who’ll tell them I’m a crank?’
Billy looks at the map again, the initials in red and the dates, and it makes sense all at once. ‘This is why you came to Langston instead of leaving. Even back then you suspected.’
Sam nods slowly, his hand settling on the pile of folders. ‘I meant to leave. When I met Goody it had gone quiet, I thought it was over, was going to take Ellie with me and start again somewhere new, but then-‘ His shoulders slump. ‘I stayed, but what have I done? Just stood by and worried at it while it kept on happening, and me the only person who’s willing to say what I see.’
‘But why?’ Billy’s struggling to make sense of it. ‘These are – how can everyone just keep quiet about it?’
Sam peers at him over the top of his glasses. ‘Where’s Goody in all of this?’
‘I—‘ Billy tries not to flinch.
‘He know you’re over here?’ insists Sam.
‘I told him I was meeting Ellie.’ Billy can hear his own defensiveness and Sam leans forward, his gaze uncomfortable.
‘Why haven’t you spoken to him about it?’
Billy hesitates. Why hasn’t he? His gaze flicks to the board of photographs again, the house, the bonfire, and he thinks of the weird trees he never mentioned… ‘I meant to, but I wasn’t sure. I didn’t want to worry him. He’s been so settled, since we moved, so positive…’
‘So you kept it to yourself.’ Sam seems strangely satisfied. ‘I told you right off, there’s a lot doesn’t get said in Rose Creek.’
Billy remembers that, Sam sitting on the windowseat in the bookstore. ‘But if you think bad stuff is going on, why didn’t you warn us? Tell us to choose somewhere else?’
Sam eyes him patiently. ‘Would you have listened? Or would you have said to Goody, Sam’s turned crazy, obsessive?’ Billy fights down the flare of guilt that threatens to make him flush. ‘Everyone there would have told you the same.’
‘Alejo.’ Billy’s thinking aloud. ‘I think he was trying to say about it, when he was talking to Josh.’
Sam nods again. ‘I was surprised to see him back. Like I said, he left, and there aren’t many do. He never said it outright, but I don’t think he was happy about things.’
‘He was trying to warn Josh, I think.’ Billy frowns, remembering Alejo’s strangled frustration and Josh’s incomprehension. ‘And at the pumpkin festival too, when they quarrelled.’ He looks again at the snapshot of the house, all ornate porches and turrets, and he doesn’t really need to ask. ‘You think it’s Bogue.’
‘Nothing I can prove.’ Sam’s expression is grim. ‘Man has alibis from here to Sunday.’
‘Why, though? Isn’t it a bit-‘ Textbook, he wants to say. ‘Just because he’s eccentric?’
‘He’s-‘ Sam blows out a breath, frustrated. ‘It’s not my story to tell. But I have grounds for believing he has something to do with it, yes.’
Bogue a serial killer? Billy can’t square it with the man he knows. ‘But Bogue’s so-‘
‘-charming,’ Sam finishes for him. ‘Of course he is.’ He rubs an absent finger over the photo of the smiling long-haired girl. ‘So affable, so helpful. All those quirky old-style affectations, the suit and the car and the manners. Everyone likes him.’
‘He helped us find the shop.’ It seems so long ago. Billy focuses on Sam again. ‘So what should I do? I’m not saying I – but there must be something.’
Sam stands up, a hand on his shoulder. ‘Be my eyes and ears. Someone who’s there, in the town…and if Bogue’s taken a shine to you, so much the better. See and hear what’s in front of you.’ He shakes Billy’s shoulder. ‘And talk to Goody.’
When he pulls out of Sam’s gate Billy intends to head straight home, but driving back down Langston’s sprawling main street his resolve weakens as doubts begin to nag. He slows, finds a parking spot and pulls over near what passes for a café here. It’s no hip independent with artisanal sourdough and zucchini muffins, but a down-at-heel place with prewrapped croissants and idling customers whose stares are none too welcoming.
He takes his lukewarm tea to a scuffed table near the back and tries to marshal his thoughts. It’s hard to know what to think: Rose Creek is the last place he’d have expected to find any troubling events, and at heart he came here expecting Sam to dismiss his fears, not to confront him with a full-blown multiple murder theory. It’s too like a crime show – missing children, cold cases and a maverick detective. Could something like this really be covered up, especially if it’s been going on as long as Sam claims? Could the police hide something so extensive? Surely someone would have broken ranks, wanting to find out what happened to their son or daughter. Unless it’s some, what, some mass delusion? But that really is straying into twilight zone territory. Still, he did think there was something odd about everyone’s reactions, didn’t he? And why did Bogue lie about Jack’s family? He cups his hands around his mug, chasing the little warmth he can find. Sam’s right about one thing – he needs to talk to Goody.
--
It’s only mid-afternoon when Billy gets back home, Goody still at work: it’s not a conversation he wants to have in the shop, so he determinedly prints out his image of the ornamented trees on Beacon Hill and leaves it in plain sight on the kitchen table, then goes for a run to try and work off some of his tension. The fresh air and a suitably demanding route succeed in clearing his mind, and once he’s back and showered he starts on the dinner prep, music playing in the background and Ha-eun hovering companionably at the prospect of shrimp.
Absorbed in the calm rhythm of peeling and chopping, he’s taken by surprise when Goody bursts through the door on a gust of cold, slinging down his bag with a comic grimace. ‘Remind me why I thought children’s story and crafting sessions were a good idea? I’ve got glue in my eyebrows and organic glitter in places you wouldn’t believe.’
‘Good for trade?’ hazards Billy. There are streaks of what looks like paint down Goody’s shirt and when he takes off his jacket a shower of glitter drifts onto the floor. ‘What were you doing, rolling in it?’
Goody rubs at his head distractedly: he’s not wrong about the glue. ‘Little swine never stopped shrieking, and if I turned my back they were daring each other to hang out over the balcony. I need an Advil, a shower and a drink.’
‘Can help with the last.’ Billy produces a bottle and glass.
‘And the shower?’ Goody’s speculative look is tempting, but Billy can’t let himself be distracted so easily.
‘Dinner first,’ he tells him firmly, ‘go wash up.’
When Goody comes back, hair damp and curling and scented with lime, he snags his glass and leans against the counter. ‘How was Ellie?’
‘Good.’ Billy tips the shrimp into a colander and shoves them over to him for deveining while he goes back to the vegetables. ‘She gave me some ideas how to present it, and we’ve got the dates mapped out.’ He steels himself, feeling a twinge of absurdity – this is Goody he’s talking to. ‘I saw Sam too.’
‘Doing his civic duty?’ Goody’s concentrating on the shrimp, hands under the faucet.
‘No – I went to his house. To talk to him.’
Goody turns around from the sink. ‘Why do you sound so shifty? Have you started a whirlwind affair with him?’ He waggles his eyebrows suggestively. ‘That mustache working its sexy seventies magic?’
‘Idiot.’ Billy can’t help smiling. ‘No, I went to talk to him about the boy. Riley Gill.’
Goody puts down his knife and picks up a cloth to dry his hands, instantly serious. ‘Search got to you, huh? It’s an upsetting--’
‘I’m not upset.’ Billy didn’t mean to snap and from Goody’s expression it’s not helping his case. ‘It’s just –‘
‘What?’ Goody hooks out a chair and sits down, glass in hand.
‘It seemed strange, all these stories about missing children. This boy, and the girl from the roadhouse, the one Leni was talking about, and Jack’s son before. And there was a report in the papers I was reading, the back issues, about another girl, way back…’ He cuts himself off at Goody’s look of confusion. ‘I didn’t buy what Harp’s saying about the boy and his dad, it just seemed too neat, and Sam didn’t seem to be buying it either. So I called in to ask him.’
Goody gets up to fetch another glass from the cabinet and fills it for Billy, clearly taking time before he speaks. ‘And what did he say?’
‘Those files he has in his study, the map, that’s what it’s all about. He said there have been other disappearances over time, and they’re being hushed up.’
Goody’s eyebrows shoot up. ‘Disappearances? Like murders?’
‘Not exactly.’ Billy sinks into the chair next to him. ‘Children, teenagers, just – vanishing.’
‘Vanishing?’ Goody’s scepticism is plain.
‘And he says Harp’s covering it up, making out nothing’s going on.’
Goody’s brow furrows. ‘So why hasn’t he taken it up with the state police?’
‘I asked that, and he said he has no real evidence.’ Put like that it does sound weak.
‘Look, there’s...’ Goody trails off, turning the stem of his glass in his fingers, and Billy feels a stab of compunction at dragging him into all this. ‘I’ve been friends with Sam for a long time. He’s the most honest man I know, and God knows I’d believe a lot of Harp. But – well – after what happened to Ellie, you can understand if Sam’s oversensitive.’
‘Ellie?’ Billy hates the feeling of being wrongfooted. ‘What’s she got to do with it?’
Goody sighs, still fiddling with his glass. ‘I told you, he’s never really said and it’s not our business, but... there was some kind of assault, when she was still at school, or maybe just after. That’s why he’s always been so protective of her. I’m not saying he’s projecting, but...’ It’s an explanation, and a good one: Billy’s chagrin must show on his face because Goody leans closer to wrap an arm around him. He lets himself lean into it as Goody adds, ‘I don’t know about Jack’s son, but whatever happened, it was a long time ago. The girl at the roadhouse?’ He smiles. ‘I ran away to the bright lights when I was a teen, never looked back, and I can’t say I blame her for doing the same.’
‘And Riley?’ objects Billy stubbornly, though he knows he’s lost the argument.
Goody lets him go and nudges his wine towards him. ‘Who knows what goes on in a family? I’ll grant you Harp is lazy and greedy and on the take, but do you really think he’d cover up abductions deliberately? Over such a long time?’
Without Sam’s urgency it all seems so reasonable. ‘Sam said he thinks Bogue has something to do with it.’
Goody looks genuinely perturbed. ‘Why? I know Sam doesn’t like him, but – well, it’s a bit obvious, isn’t it? Eccentric old guy, wealthy, lives alone. If there were really any suspicion, would he be so popular round here?’
‘There’s some weird stuff up at his house, though,’ begins Billy, ‘When I was up there I found these trees with—’
‘Hang on.’ Goody’s phone is buzzing and he pulls it out of his pocket. Emma, he mouths as he answers it and Billy gets up back to put on the rice cooker.
‘No, we’re not,’ Goody tells her. ‘Can’t say either of us is much for…’ He breaks off, listening. ‘Lost sheep? We’re honoured.’ Whatever Emma says in response makes him laugh. ‘Sounds good. ‘Long as Josh won’t make us watch football. Televised sport brings me out in hives.’ Emma’s answer makes him snort again and he says with a glance at Billy, ‘I’ll run it past him and let you know for sure.’
Billy raises an eyebrow as he lays down the phone. ‘Thanksgiving,’ Goody explains. ‘Emma’s rounding everyone up for potluck food and a Star Wars marathon.’
‘”Lost sheep”?’ Billy doesn’t like the ring of it.
‘Everyone who doesn’t want to be with their family.’ Goody picks up the bottle and glasses to take them through. ‘Guess that’s us,’ and Billy has to admit it is – the two of them turned their backs on traditional Thanksgivings years ago, Billy because his family never really bought into it anyway, and Goody resisting a crushing weight of obligation and family drama.
‘Why is she doing it, though? She and Matt must be related to half the town.’
Goody shrugs, standing in the doorway. ‘Guess you can ask her yourself. What were you-’ His face changes as he looks at something over Billy’s shoulder. ‘I don’t think she should be doing that.’
Billy turns to see Ha-eun leap down from the counter with the shrimp she’s swiped. ‘Jenjang,’ he curses as she darts under the table with her prize, nimbly evading Goody’s swipe.
Goody laughs. ‘Come one. I’ve done enough herding cats for one day.’ Billy covers the bowl of shrimp and follows him into the living-room where he’s already stretched out on the sofa, the picture of the trees on Beacon Hill forgotten on the kitchen table underneath Goody’s bag.
--
Emma and Matt’s house is a small colonial-style tucked away behind the school where the sports fields run out into the trees; Goody turns off the engine, reaches for the door, then huffs in amusement at Billy’s expression. ‘Brace up. These things always turn out better than you think.’
The street is unnaturally quiet, even for a damp late-autumn day; Billy looks around darkly as they get out of the car. ‘Just think: a Thanksgiving in every house you can see, and each one its own theatre of alienation and despair.’
‘That’s the spirit,’ says Goody unsympathetically, reaching into the trunk for the dishes they’ve brought.
Billy can’t stop grousing as he follows Goody up the path and round into a rambling yard with an overgrown herb garden by the back door. ‘Remember the time Felicia got her women’s group to dress up as turkeys and have themselves slaughtered outside the mall? All that cranberry sauce? Shouldn’t we be doing something like that?’
‘Don’t let Em hear that, it’ll give her ideas,’ Matt greets them cheerfully. The kitchen is painted a bright blue, its shelves crowded with more herbs in containers and glass jars of preserves; Matt’s putting together a salad beside a humming oven.
‘Japchae,’ announces Goody, ranging his containers on the counter. ‘And my aunt Trudy’s famous peach cobbler.’
Billy regards the oven suspiciously. ‘What’s cooking?’
Matt rolls his eyes. ‘Sourdough loaf. Teddy made it – Red said he’d only come if there was a cast-iron guarantee of no turkey.’
‘Red and Teddy?’ Goody lights up and Billy sighs inwardly.
‘Grab a beer and go on through.’ Matt waves them into the living room, as bright and cosy as the kitchen with shelves of well-read books and handmade furniture draped with velvet throws. There’s no sign of a dinner-table with elaborate settings, Billy’s pleased to see, just Red sitting with Kipitaki at his feet, watching as Teddy cues up A New Hope.
Teddy breaks off to beam at them. ‘Happy Thanksgiving.’ Red makes a noise that sounds like tchah.
‘There you are, cher,’ Goody nudges Billy delightedly, ‘someone who likes it less than you.’
Red glowers at him. ‘Columbus was the first terrorist.’
‘I can see why you don’t take him home,’ Billy tells Teddy, who snickers cheerfully – he really is impossible to annoy, which Billy finds intensely annoying.
‘Em’ll be back soon with Josh and Blue,’ Matthew says, coming in with a stack of plates, ‘but she said to start without her.’
‘How come you’re not at home with the family?’ Billy asks as the credits begin to scroll.
Matt shrugs. ‘Em didn’t want to. Time to start a new tradition.’
‘I’m for anything that doesn’t involve yelling, breaking crockery and compulsory heterosexuality.’ Goody raises his beer and Billy settles in on the sofa beside him, Kipitaki’s tail thumping over his feet.
As Luke is getting his lightsaber Josh’s truck pulls up outside and Blue comes running up the path, dog Jack on her heels and Emma and Josh following behind. There’s a burst of excited chatter and barking from the kitchen, and Josh appears in the doorway. ‘No Phantom Menace,’ he warns sternly, ‘got to make sure Blue learns the right way of things.’
‘Been baking?’ asks Teddy, nodding at the pie he’s holding.
Josh looks aggrieved. ‘Em said I had to bring something, so I bought it from the farm shop. Too much fuss if you ask me.’
‘Not a fan of Thanksgiving?’ deadpans Matt.
Josh snorts. ‘I was following my family’s tradition I’d’ve brought a fifth of grain alcohol and a TV dinner.’
‘I think Josh wins this round,’ observes Goody.
Red scowls at the room in general. ‘Don’t know why we’re going through the motions.’
‘Because the alternative’s worse,’ says Emma briskly, coming in with Teddy’s loaf. ‘Hiding out pretending it isn’t happening.’ She sets the bread beside with the other dishes. ‘Just dig in and take whatever you want.’
‘I made cookies,’ Blue announces from the doorway, ‘and you can all have some.’ She looks around and her face falls. ‘Isn’t Tio Alejo here? Or TV?’
‘Not today, dino, I told you,’ says Josh patiently.
Emma strokes her hair. ‘They’re with their own family today, sweetie.’
‘Guess Alejo will want to spend time with them before he leaves.’ Goody sounds disappointed too. ‘We’ll miss him.’
Josh growls something indeterminate and Billy looks at him sideways. ‘Thought it was all over between you.’
‘It is.’ Josh is suddenly occupied in tussling with Jack, his face hidden. ‘Wasn’t ever serious.’
‘Could have fooled me.’
Josh looks up sharply. ‘Don’t know what business it is of yours.’
‘He asked you to go to Phoenix with him,’ Billy points out. It’s beyond tactless; even Red looks impressed.
Josh scowls ferociously. ‘Think you’d have the grace to pretend you weren’t earwigging. And you heard me say, Blue and I are best off here.’
‘Plenty of other prospects in Rose Creek, you’ll see,’ Teddy consoles him. ‘I was a single man, and a hot new vet dropped into my lap.’
It’s an obvious attempt to lighten things, but the blithe assurance grates on Billy. ‘That’s it? Just sit round waiting for what you want to turn up?’
He only realises how aggressive he sounds when Goody’s elbow jabs into his ribs. ‘Worth a try, cher. Maybe Keanu Reeves is putting a down payment on a holiday house here as we speak.’
The joke dissolves the tension before it can tip over into a quarrel, but Billy sits back, strangely on edge. Why is he poking at Josh? This is just their kind of occasion, a non-Thanksgiving spent with friends, bickering amiably over a cheesy movie: why can’t he relax into it? He feels somehow out of step with it all, as though he’s watching things from behind a sheet of glass, and what he sees are the little sour notes – the tick of worry in the lines around Matt’s mouth as he watches Emma, the slightly too-anxious smile that Teddy casts at an unresponsive Red. Maybe they are just missing Alejo and his sunny-tempered ability to ease them all along.
It happens again when Goody mentions Sam, and Billy’s upcoming project at Ellie’s school. A flicker crosses Matt’s face, the same odd reluctance as before, and this time Billy can’t resist pressing. ‘Like I said, you should get your kids involved. Bring them over to Langston for a change.’
‘I put it to the department, but they haven’t decided,’ says Matt, and the evasion seems obvious.
‘Be good for them, let them see what life’s like somewhere else,’ challenges Billy. ‘Spread the privilege around a bit.’
Matt exchanges a glance with Emma, setting down his plate. ‘Maybe you should run it past someone over there too. In case they’re not as keen as you think.’
The prevarication, with its hint of superiority, flicks him on the raw. ‘How would you know? Seems to me the reluctance is all on this side – does everyone here think poverty is catching?’
Matt looks to Emma; ‘It’s not us,’ she snaps, as bad-tempered as he is. ‘No one in Langston wants anything Rose Creek has to offer. Didn’t your fight teach you anything?’
Before Goody can intervene again Billy jumps to his feet. ‘I need a smoke.’
It’s not a regular habit any more, but it gets him outside and alone, the sharp edge of the tobacco and the chilly air steadying. Too many people? After a while the back door opens and he expects Goody, come in theory to disapprove and in practice to bum a cigarette for himself, but it’s Matt, two fresh beers in hand. He offers Billy one. ‘Em’s a bit short-fused today.’
Billy crushes out the stub of his cigarette so he can take the bottle and the olive branch. ‘Not her fault.’
Matt leans against the wall beside him. ‘You’re not the only one to find Thanksgiving difficult.’
‘You should see Goody’s family,' offers Billy darkly. ‘We only went there once.’
Matt takes a pull on his beer, looking away up the hillside. ‘Ours mean well, both of them, but...’ He shrugs. ‘Not the easiest time.’
--
By the time Attack of the Clones comes round everyone’s attention is flagging: Goody is talking poetry with Matt while Blue and Teddy are thumping about in the hall, duelling with toy lightsabers. Emma's still unusually quiet, twisting her hair restlessly in her fingers; Billy's not thrilled at being left to pass the time with taciturn Red, but at least the beer's helping.
Josh comes back from refereeing the battle and flops down on Red's other side. ‘I gotta admit it, young Teddy’s prime father material.’
Red looks suitably horrified at the idea. ‘No thanks.’
Josh guffaws, obviously enjoying his discomfiture. ‘That’s what I used to say. No one more set against parenthood than me. But believe me, kids are the best.’
Red’s impervious to his enthusiasm. ‘They’re fine, 'long as they’re old enough to look after themselves.’
Josh grins. ‘Just give it a year or two, Teddy will have you whipped. Can just see you as a family man with a houseful of ‘em.’
And yet again, though Billy's resolved to stay calm, it's just the remark to pierce through to a tender spot. ‘What kind of AFA crap is that?’ he demands.
Red turns on Billy irritably. ‘Don’t need you to fight my corner,’ but Billy ignores him.
‘Not everyone has to have kids,’ he tells Josh, 'they're not some magic road to adulthood.'
‘Give it a break, guys,’ says Emma sharply, her face gone hard, but Josh is already flushing with annoyance.
‘You're as poisonous as a snake today. Happy to tell me what to do, interfering where it don't concern you, but can't hear anything you don't like.’
It's as though the anger is permanently there, churning under the surface, and now it comes roaring back to the air. ‘Could have gone to Louisiana for Thanksgiving if we wanted to hear this bullshit. “How can you call yourself a family if you don’t have kids...”’
‘Hey, now-‘ Goody’s protest is cut off as Emma’s glass tips over, spilling wine and shattering as it hits the floor.
‘Honey-‘ Matt looks up stricken as she bolts from the room.
‘Shit,’ says Josh, ‘I mean, heck.’
‘Just...’ Matt waves a hand at them as he goes after her.
Red, pragmatic as ever, starts to gather up the shards of glass, but Teddy appears in the doorway looking accusingly to Billy. ‘Did you have to?’
Behind him Blue’s eyes fill with tears, the lightsaber in her hand forgotten. ‘Why is everyone quarrelling?’
‘It’s traditional,’ Red tells her solemnly. ‘We're celebrating a dysfunctional society.’
‘I’m leaving,’ announces Billy, and it’s actually a relief. ‘Keep the car,’ he adds to Goody, then walks out without waiting for a reply.
He’s made it to the end of the next street, the damp air cool on his face in the unnatural silence of the streets, when the headlights come up behind him and Goody leans over to swing open the door. Billy gets in, the knot of guilt and resentment in his chest made worse by the conviction that he’s made a fool of himself. ‘Going to tell me it was all my fault?’
Goody glances over at him with a wry twist to his mouth. ‘You didn’t help, I’ll say that. Though I don’t think it was all your fault. Josh is a jackass, and something’s going on with Emma and Matt, that’s obvious.’ They traverse the dark streets in silence until Goody adds, ‘Smalltown beginning to get to you?’
‘Kind of.’ Billy sits back, ready to tackle what he needs to say once more, but before he can start Goody continues, ‘Well, you’re back to the bright lights next week. Probably good for you to have a break. Look up some of the old crowd, see what they’re up to. You know Leo’s gotSunday in the Park with George running, god help us?’
‘Sorry,’ says Billy, disarmed by this unexpected solicitude.
‘There is a reason we don’t do Thanksgiving,’ observes Goody dryly. ‘Though there are still some things we should be grateful for, like the unopened bottle of tequila I’ve got stashed in the top cupboard.’
--
Next morning the alarm goes off way too early and Goody sits up with a groan. ‘Stay,’ Billy urges him, dragging the covers back up around his shoulders, but Goody swings his legs reluctantly out of bed. ‘Can’t not open for whatever the Rose Creek equivalent of Black Friday is.’
It’s an effort, but Billy hauls himself out of bed to show solidarity while Goody showers. Sunny summer mornings seem a long time ago: when Goody opens the door the sun’s barely up and a first light snow lies on the ground.
Goody shudders theatrically. ‘Commerce is a harsh mistress.’
‘Bring you coffee later,’ promises Billy, then he closes the door and weasels back to bed for another hour with a purring Ha-eun.
When he wakes up properly he lies for a while, if he’s honest because he’s reluctant to face the day. Quarrelling with friends is hardly new, but what happened yesterday is a symptom of a greater disquiet. He still hasn’t managed to talk to Goody about what he saw on Beacon Hill: each time he tries distraction overtakes him and his will ebbs away. Today, he tells himself firmly. Definitely. And there’s work he needs to catch up too, sorting out his stay in town and that commission’s not going to fill itself, is it? The prospect finally galvanises him into action, and he showers briskly and loads up on coffee to power through his emails and bookings. After lunch he sets out for the bookstore, camera bag on his shoulder: he can collect his prints from the museum too, and maybe scout out some potential locations on his way.
The day’s brightened up, a weak sun filtering through ragged clouds, though if there is a frenzy of consumerism among the citizens of Rose Creek it’s hardly in evidence – Goody will probably be glad of some company. He crosses the junction, past the white-painted church with its old-fashioned graveyard, and slows, considering. He’s passed it often enough without giving it serious attention: in contrast to the regimented and painstakingly manicured cemeteries he’s familiar with, it’s gently rustic, with spreading trees standing guard over the stones and memorials that scatter the rolling grass. It’s as reliably picturesque as most things in Rose Creek, and it occurs to him that for a commercial job it could be just what he needs. The iron gate stands opens, an invitation, and he steps through to wander among the tombstones.
The layout is haphazard: simple headstones, some old enough to be weathered to illegibility, sit next to imposing nineteenth-century monuments with statues and poetic dedications, and beside them modern granite crosses or plaques with neat black lettering. Many of the names are ones he knows, parents and grandparents who were born, married and died here; it makes him think of his own family, the ancestors’ graves in a village in Korea he’s never seen, his father’s stone in an anonymous cemetery back in San Francisco. He walks the crooked rows at random, pausing now and then to frame a striking view – a lone timeworn marker in the shadow of a cypress, a pensive stone angel poring over an open marble book.
Intent on potential shots, he only vaguely registers the man who’s working, trowel in hand, behind a wide white stone, but when he rounds the next avenue Billy sees him properly, tall and dark-haired, brushing off his jeans as he straightens: Alejo. Of course: he raises a hand in greeting, and coming closer, Billy can read the new name on the marker: Arturo Vasquez, loving husband, devoted father and grandfather, the fresh lettering a stark contrast to the faded dedications above.
At the stone’s foot beside a bunch of marigolds bright in the washed-out sun is newly-planted shrub. ‘An azalea,’ Alejo explains. ‘Carmen wanted something that’ll flower each spring.’
‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ offers Billy formally, then hesitates, unsure what to say.
‘Did you-‘ starts Alejo at the same time as Billy asks abruptly, ‘You really leaving?’
Alejo stiffens. ‘Next week. Just a few ends to tie up.’
He’s trying to make it final, but, ‘Why won’t you stay?’ Billy demands.
Alejo kneels to gather up his tools. ‘Didn’t come back here for good, I told you.’
It’s the cue to leave well alone and Billy ignores it. ‘Why not, though? You’re not short of work here. And Josh wants you to stay. Everyone does.’ He can seee Alejo’s shoulders tense.
‘Since when was this your business? My life’s not here.’
‘From what you said it’s not in Phoenix either.’ He can’t back down now. ‘What’s stopping you setting up here?’
‘Why are you doing this?’ Alejo’s thumb rubs over the inscription on the stone as he stands and Billy’s suddenly uncomfortably aware that he’s haranguing his friend at his father’s graveside.
‘I think you won’t stay because of what goes on here.’ Billy watches Alejo’s expression narrowly as he inches step by step out over the ice. ‘Because you can’t protect your nephews, no matter how hard you try. Because Josh won’t listen to you about Blue.’
Alejo blinks, and it’s as though he’s seeing Billy properly for the first time. ‘How do you-‘ The words choke off and he scans around, almost furtively, then stoops to pluck one of the marigolds from the vase. He holds it for a moment, then walks away, jerking his head for Billy to follow.
He leads them through the rows of markers, further away from the church to where the trees grow closer together, and stops in front of a small stone, its letters weathered so pale that the inscription is hard to make out: Liliana Peretz, beloved daughter of Benjamin and Rachel. Billy reads the dates. ‘She was seven years old?’
Alejo bends a knee to place his flower in front of the stone. ‘Lily was my friend.’ His throat works as he seems to force the words out. ‘When we were small. She never did what she was told. She liked climbing trees, she was braver than me. She kissed me once, for a dare.’ His fingertips trail across the top of the stone. ‘Then one day...’ He pauses, so long that Billy wonders if he’s changed his mind about telling the story. ‘...she was gone. Just gone. No one would tell me why. She hadn’t been ill. But they put up the stone here and after that everyone acted as though she never was.’ There’s a sheen of sweat on his brow as though it’s costing him to get the words out. ‘As I got older I almost began to think she’d been an imaginary friend. But she wasn’t.’
Billy reads the stone again. Was there an LP among the initials on Sam’s map? ‘Sam told me,’ he says, his voice low even though they’re alone among the graves. ‘About children from Rose Creek who go missing, disappear. How everyone says they ran away, or got lost...’
Alejo touches the stone again, the gesture heavy with sorrow. ‘You think I don’t want to stay here? Take the workship my tio offered me and set up the business properly? Try again with that annoying jackass?’ The pain on his face is clear to read. ‘Sam won’t give up, but staying makes you part of it.’
‘Sam thinks it’s-’
Before Billy can finish his sentence Alejo’s hand slaps over his mouth, filling his nostrils with the scent of earth. ‘Don’t,’ he hisses. Billy’s too surprised to react, staring into Alejo’s eyes, heart thudding, Alejo so close he can feel his warmth, weirdly intimate. ‘You should leave,’ he urges. ‘It’s the only way. Goody’ll listen to you: just go.’
‘What?’ Billy shakes himself free: somehow this has all spun out of his control. ‘We can’t just up and go.’
‘I’m telling you, there’s no other way.’ Alejo makes to turn away, but Billy grabs his arm.
‘Tell me straight out, then. What is it you’re running away from?’
‘It’s...’ Alejo swallows hard. ‘If you keep looking, you’ll find it.’
‘Fuck’s sake! Where?’ Billy’s fingers are digging into his bicep in frustration and Alejo jerks his arm away.
‘Here.’ There’s a bleak humour to his tone as he gestures around them. ‘Read the gravestones. It’s here, if you can see it.’
Billy stares after his retreating back, struggling to process what just happened. How did everything get this strange? He looks down at Lily Peretz’s stone again. Just gone. What is he looking for? Other short lives? The names on Sam’s map? He makes his way slowly back along the row of markers, old and new side by side, a confusing jumble of names and dedications. What’s he supposed to see? At the foot of a tall grey column a fresh bunch of red chrysanthemums lies below three names: Alma Paul Horne, beloved wife, Rose Willow Horne, beloved daughter, John Rowan Horne, beloved son. He stands in baffled frustration, Jack’s voice echoing in his mind: I put a marker for John so they’d be together.
He keeps going, moving more quickly, past old stones and new, families and single names, until he’s lost all track of what he’s read. He finally halts under the statue of the recording angel, the grandest monument in the churchyard, commemorating four generations of the Stoner family. The cold’s worked in through his coat and boots, and he doesn’t know if he’s angrier at Alejo or at himself for getting suckered into this. If the graveyard has anything to tell him it’s that everyone dies. They’re buried and they’re mourned, and eventually they’re forgotten. And children die too. It’s sad, but they do. All he’s done here is waste his time, and he doesn’t even have any trial shots to show for it. Shoulders hunched in irritation he marches back to the gate and clangs it shut behind him.
The little town museum is fortunately empty when he gets there, and from the alacrity with which Josiah greets him he suspects visitors have been few today. He’s hardly in the mood to chat, but Josiah’s nothing if not pleasant in his courteous and slightly fussy way; he assures Billy the prints are ready, just needing to be packed up, and taps away to fetch them. Billy chafes inwardly at more delay, but at least he’s indoors; while he waits he casts a cursory eye over the displays – the photographs of the founding of Rose Creek he’s seen, but there are documents from its early institutions, antiquated household paraphernalia and showcases on the logging industry and the mills.
He pauses in front of one of the images on the wall, an early group portrait of a town council or Board of Trade, stiffly-posed men in high collars and muttonchop whiskers staring gravely at the camera. Some of them are faces he knows – there’s a tall angular man with the same cast of features as Matthew and another with handsome mustachios and curly hair who can only be a Vasquez. And there, in the centre, with his neat goatee and slicked-back hair, holding his hat on his knee, is Bogue. Bogue’s grandfather or great-uncle, it must be, some old-time Bogue presiding over the town worthies. He reads the caption underneath: Rose Creek Civic Council, 1883: Theodore Hinz, Porfirio Vasquez, Arthur Cullen, Andrew McCafferty … Bartholomew Bogue.
Billy peers closer, the glass cold under his fingertips. Grainy though the image is, there’s something very recognisable about the man in the sprigged vest and old-fashioned coat. Dresses like his grandfather, Sam had said, and he does, exactly like his grandfather: this could be the man whose shiny vintage car he sat in just the other day, down to the smallest detail, from the square diamond tiepin to the buttoned boots.
He steps back, the scrape of his feet loud in the silence. Names can run in families – he married a man who’s actually called Goodnight, didn’t he? Bogue must be named after this guy. Maybe all the sons were; it’s probably common knowledge, if the Bogues have been here that long – there must be a whole line of them under some Victorian monstrosity of a monument in the graveyard-- His stomach lurches as it bursts on him with a cold certainty. There wasn’t, was there? All the old families were there, generations of names on markers and statues, but he didn’t see a Bogue memorial because there isn’t one.
Just then Josiah comes fussing back with a carefully-wrapped packet and Billy takes it from him distractedly, blood rushing in his ears. Josiah beams at his interest in the display. ‘Fascinating, aren’t they, these old photos. Real windows into the past.’
‘I-‘ Billy’s mouth is dry. He looks into Josiah’s face for a sign of recognition, of understanding, but all he sees is goodwill and a scholarly earnestness. Don’t you think it’s odd? he wants to ask, how can you not see it? Instead he stammers some vague thanks, promises to pass on good wishes to his husband, then lets himself out onto the square again.
And just as before, walking along the treelined street, he starts to think he must have been mistaken. Was the man in the photograph really so like Bogue? Images can be deceptive, he should know that. And is it really so strange that there’s no marker in the churchyard? Perhaps there’s a family mausoleum, up on Beacon Hill. It doesn’t have to—
He stops dead in the street, Goody’s blue and white storefront visible up ahead. This is the temptation, isn’t it, to rationalise it away, tell himself a story to make himself stop worrying. He can’t, not when Sam and Alejo have tried so hard to tell him: he has to find out what’s going on, and he knows where. He lifts his gaze to the pine-clad slope rising steeply behind the town. Time I went looking for some answers.