“You haven’t asked about spot number one,” says Aidan, drawing my attention back to the boys in the car.
“What’s spot number one?”
“The textile mill. Because of a fire.”
“And the girl,” interjects Chase. “Three kids found a dead girl up there five years ago.”
“She knows about the girl, idiot,” says Joey as he slows for a red light.
And just like that, not thinking about that last entry in Riley’s book becomes impossible.
Going to the mill that day had been my idea. I had been wanting to go ever since I overheard someone talking about how chimney swifts roosted in the old buildings. You could see groups of them in town all day long—small, soot-colored birds that rose and fell on the air like puffs of smoke—but at the mill, you could supposedly see thousands of them. So many that they blocked out the sun. So many that the sound of all of those wings was like thunder.
Noah overheard us planning. He didn’t rat us out and he didn’t try to stop us, but he insisted on coming. “It’s dangerous,” he had said, like the extra years he had on us made some sort of difference.
We hiked up to the mill and slipped through the fence. Riley spotted a small, silver medal with the initials NMK engraved on the back in the weeds. He bent down to pick it up and fell behind.
NMK.
Nora Michelle Knight. A history major at the university who had wanted to get a look at the brickwork at the old mill. She hadn’t known she had a heart condition. A time bomb in her chest that went off when she was alone.
I spotted her first, then Noah.
He grabbed me and spun me around as he told Riley, still behind us, not to come any closer. He pulled me to his chest and told me not to look, even though it was already too late. Her eyes had been open, and there had been something crawling on her cheek. That’s what I remember—but I’ve never been entirely sure if those were details I actually saw or if they were things I picked up from Noah when he touched me.
Riley hadn’t listened. Over Noah’s shoulder, I watched as he drew closer. He drew closer, and in the distance, thousands of swifts filled the air like smoke
The light turns green and the car jumps forward.
Chase is staring at me. “Right. Montgomery. You were there. You’re the girl who was with Riley and Noah Fraser.”
One of the joys of small towns: find one dead body and that information will follow you around forever.
Joey pulls into a parking lot and kills the engine. To our right is the town’s lone coffee shop. To our left is a row of stores crowded so closely together that they might as well be a strip mall. A pharmacy sits at one end, an old video store at the other. I shake my head, unable to quite believe video stores actually still exist.
We all climb out of the car. “So you guys are what? Like those people on TV who run around hunting ghosts?”
“Nah,” says Chase. “Just horror fans. We’re organizing Montgomery Falls’ first horror film festival. And by ‘festival,’ I mean a double feature in the town square on a Tuesday night because that was all they’d give us permission for.”
“I’m not just a fan,” mutters Joey.
Chase rolls his eyes. “Okay. I’m just a fan. Joey is also into local hauntings and writes horror movies. He’s been working on one about the town, but he won’t let anyone see it.”
“Performance anxiety,” Aidan says to me in a stage whisper. “Hey—Cat’s dad is a hotshot writer. Maybe she can give you pointers.”
I open my mouth to make some excuse about how I don’t really know anything about writing, but before I can get a single word out, Joey says, “Elliot Montgomery. Everyone in town knows who he is. And my screenplay is a work in progress. It’s not ready to be seen.”
There’s a snide, arrogant tone to his voice that’s grating.
“Hey,” he says, “did you notice anything while you were up at the mill that day?”
“You mean aside from the dead girl?”
“Right. Any unexplained phenomena? Supernatural activity or hostility? I’ve been wondering if the presence of a Montgomery would trigger any of the ghosts of the men who died in the tunnels.”
“You think the ghosts are angry at us?”
“Of course. Wouldn’t you be pissed?”
He and Chase launch into a debate about the best angry ghost movies with Aidan interjecting. None of them notice when I fall back. They just keep walking until they reach the video store and then disappear inside.
I decide to give them a few minutes—long enough, hopefully, for Joey to forget all about the mill and his questions. Pulling in a deep breath, I run a hand through my hair. As I do, the bracelet on my wrist—just a cheap, braided cord with some beads—catches on a tangle and breaks. The cord falls to the ground at my feet, but the beads scatter.
Only then do I realize that I’m not alone.
A guy stands just to the left of the pharmacy door, a small paper bag in his hand. He must have come out just as Chase, Joey, and Aidan walked by. There’s something vaguely familiar about the sweep of his dark hair over his forehead and the tense set of his shoulders and the way he holds himself. But he’s older now—five years older—and it takes a moment for it to click. When it does, my stomach drops
Noah. Noah Fraser.
It feels slightly surreal, seeing him. For a moment, the two Noahs overlap—the one standing outside the drugstore and the one who exists in my memory—but then I blink and the illusion shatters.
Noah bends down and picks up one of the beads from my broken bracelet. He straightens and holds it out to me.
There are angry red marks on his knuckles. Cuts that have scabbed over. He used to play the piano, I remember suddenly as I look at his hand. On warm summer nights, the sound of his playing would drift through the Frasers’ house and out into the yard. It’s one of those tiny, insignificant details that lodges itself in the back of your mind, buried until something small dredges it to the surface.
I cross the space between us and then hesitate. There’s no way for me to reach out and take the bead without risking skin brushing skin. Instead, I form a cup with my palms and wait for him to drop the bead inside.
As he does, I have the ridiculous urge to ask if he still plays the piano, if he can tell me the name of the song he was playing that afternoon before we went to the mill. I want to tell him about the classical music concert Lacey’s mom took us to—Ludovico Einaudi—and how one of the songs felt like seeing a thousand birds in flight. How I had to get up and leave. How I locked myself in a bathroom stall until it felt like I could breathe again.
The silence between us goes from awkward to oppressive.
Eventually, it becomes too much. “I don’t know if you remember me.” The words come out strained and halting. The idea that he could forget me seems impossible, but five years is a long time—especially when I was in his brother’s life for only a handful of months. “I used to hang around with Riley.”
Noah switches the small paper bag from one hand to the other. It rattles softly with the unmistakable sound of pill bottles.
“Cat,” he says finally. “Cat Montgomery. I remember you.”
His voice is different. Older and deeper. It no longer breaks in the middle of sentences.