and the way her life changed in an instant—not once but three times—before she decided to end hers.
I turn at the sound of scratching and watch as Miah etches our initials into the brick. Not JC loves CH or vice versa, but there, side by side. I like the semi-permanence of it—the fact that our names will be there for as long as that brick exists. Like a time capsule. No matter where I go and what happens, we were here.
* * *
—
We’re back at the basement door, where we came in, and he pulls on the latch but it doesn’t give. I say, “Wouldn’t it be funny if Tillie locked us in here?”
“Hilarious.”
He’s running his fingers along the frame of the door and pulling, and it’s not budging. I’m watching him tug at it, and it’s dawning on me that, Oh hell, maybe we really are locked in here, way down deep in the bowels of Rosecroft. With a ghost. A shiver runs through me.
And then Miah turns to look at me and goes, “We’re locked in.”
“You’re not just doing this for dramatic effect? Or to, you know, make a move on me?”
“I’m not that smooth.”
And part of me thinks, Too bad.
“It’s locked from the outside. Try for yourself.”
I give the door a tug and it doesn’t budge.
“Welcome to the island, Captain,” he says, and in that moment I think, Maybe there are worse places to be.
I wait for him to take me right then and there, but no, he starts digging around in all the relics that surround us, clearly hunting for something.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to find a crowbar or knife or anything we can use to pry the door open.”
I help him search, and as I search, I’m thinking that all these discarded, forgotten things—this umbrella, this comb, this empty bottle of perfume, this bowler hat—were once picked out and purchased and brought to this house and used by the people who lived here.
Suddenly we hear a voice from upstairs. “Hello?”
I jump as if it’s Tillie herself, back from the dead.
Miah lays a hand on my arm like, There, there, it’s okay. Only the heat from his palm has the opposite effect on my skin.
“Jeremiah? That better not be you.”
He calls out, “It’s me. We’re in the basement.”
“What are you doing in the basement?”
“Making out with this hot girl I found down here. But now you’ve locked us in.” And he lets go of me so that he can walk toward her voice.
“You should have found me and told me you were coming.”
“I was too busy making out.”
“I can’t hear you.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m up here.”
And on like this until he says, “Where’d that come from?”
We go up a narrow, dark staircase—not the outside staircase that we took to get in here, but one that leads into the house itself. Cobwebs are brushing me on the cheeks and the shoulders, and I’m batting them off. At the top of the stairs stands a tall, broad African American woman who must be Shirley. Behind her, the sky is a brilliant blue and the house is once again in ruins. We come up and out onto the first floor, into a hallway with walls and no roof.
“Jeremiah Crew.” The woman’s hands are on her hips and she is shaking her head.
But you can tell she loves him.
* * *
—
Shirley and her husband, Bram, are originally from the island, but now they split their time between here and out west, leading Outward Bound groups. They were Miah’s guides when he was in Outward Bound and they’re the parents he wishes he had, the ones who refused to give up on him when everyone else did.
We stand in the hot sun. A white Park Service truck comes rolling up the drive, loaded with inn guests. Shirley says to me, “I’ve known this boy since he was thirteen years old. Be glad you didn’t know him then. I can blame him for every gray hair on this head of mine.” But she laughs.
He give me this sheepish look, holding up his hands like, It’s true.
“Can I trust you with these ruins?” she says to him.
“Probably not.”
“You two come up to the house for dinner one night. I know Bram would love to see you.”
As they talk, there’s this tiny, rattled feeling in my chest that makes me want to run away until I’m on the other side of the wall I’ve been forging since the beginning of summer. Like