Chapter 20 #2
But just when the shattering seems to subside, the entire guesthouse starts to shake.
The walls sway in menacing vibrations, and next to me, the kitchen window shatters.
I scream. Rumbling leads to loud clanging under the sink.
Suddenly, a pipe ruptures with a metallic slam, spraying water everywhere, dousing my hair.
“Shit,” I hear Sawyer say. “Earthquake.”
Peripatetic former Midwesterner that I am, I’ve never experienced an earthquake.
I’m scared. I’ve experienced hurricanes, even tornadoes, but this feeling is horribly surreal—the ground moving underneath me, the walls of my shelter weaponized against me.
I’m frozen, struggling to remember what to do in earthquakes.
Get in doorways? Which one? Does it matter?
While the world ripples, panic constricting my chest, Sawyer rushes over. Disregarding the sink’s spray, he grabs my elbow to pull me under the kitchen table. Joining me, he wedges his body close to mine so we both fit.
While my heartbeat hurtles, I realize I’m clutching his forearm.
I don’t let go. I can’t. My fingertips whiten the tan he’s starting to get from our yard work in the sun.
Sawyer rubs his clay-coated thumb comfortingly over mine. “We’ll be okay,” he says soothingly. “We’ll be fine.”
His voice steadies me while everything else is unsteady. Outside the confines of our refuge, the shaking guesthouse does not, honestly, look fine. Plaster falls heavily from the ceiling, landing on the table above us and the floor around us. Water spews incessantly, soaking everything.
Then suddenly, the earthquake stops.
Everything is quiet. Only the whisper of the flow of water from the sink pipe fills the room.
While I’m petrified, still unmoving, Sawyer climbs out from under our cover. When he offers me his hand, his clay grip is enough to encourage me to crawl out.
I rise shakily to my feet, surveying the damage. The cottage is wrecked. The plaster has combined with the plumbing water into sludge flecked with vicious glass and ceramic shards. We’re fortunate we’re wearing shoes.
On second thought, fortunate might not be the word. Questions pound painfully in my head. Are all my things ruined? The few items I’ve treasured enough to carry with me? Am I unsentimental enough to start over completely new? What about my singular plate?
Where will I live?
Sawyer is preoccupied himself. He’s gone deathly pale. He rushes outside, thinking—I realize—of his finally near-complete erstwhile dream home. I follow him hurriedly, scared of what we’re going to find.
Except outside, nothing is different. Every window is unbroken. Our yard work is exactly like we left it.
The hillside palm trees of Sawyer’s neighborhood sway upright, the street free of fallen fronds, the bougainvillea blooms undisturbed. The trash cans remain standing. Even the shovel I leaned against the house didn’t fall over.
“How…?” I start to say, coming up next to Sawyer.
Sawyer’s expression clouds. He pulls out his phone.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Checking social media,” Sawyer replies. “If there’s one thing people in LA love to do when an earthquake hits,” he explains, “it’s posting ‘earthquake’ on social media.” He scrolls his feed. “Right now, there’s nothing, which means…”
“It wasn’t an earthquake,” I say, starting to understand. Movement flickers in the corner of my vision, which makes me face the guesthouse.
Where I see Zach.
He looks like he did in Sawyer’s spooky garage. Except worse. Gaunt. Unwell. His edges flicker, vibrating uneasily. He steps out of the ruined cottage, holding the dragon mug.
“What…happened?” he croaks out.
I exchange worried glances with Sawyer.
“Zach,” I say, “do you remember causing the earthquake? Were you upset about something?”
Zach looks up, but his gaze seems to go right through us. Like we’re the ghosts.
“I…no. I don’t remember anything. You were doing pottery, and then…I don’t—” He stares down, studying the dragon mug. He looks lost.
I look at Sawyer. “Something is seriously wrong,” I murmur. I walk closer to Zach, Sawyer following behind me. Through Zach’s flickering body, I peer into the cottage and find—
It’s fixed. There’s no broken pipe, no cracked plaster, no shattered window. My bedsheets are pristine. The only sign of the haunting is the splattered remains of Sawyer’s clay.
Sawyer gapes at the scene. “But…the impacts were real. I felt the ceiling fall on the table.”
I shiver in the calm daylight. Somehow the repaired damage is more unnerving than seeing my ruined residence.
“His haunting is getting worse,” I say. “If we don’t do something, I don’t know what might happen the next time he loses control.”
Sawyer doesn’t need convincing. “You could have been hurt. Next time—” He swallows, clenching his jaw. “We have to find out what his unfinished business is now. Before it’s too late.”
The glass-sharp undercurrent in his voice catches me by surprise. He’s scared. No…terrified. For me.
Of course he is. He’s felt the fragility of life firsthand.
I reach out to reassure him, which is when I notice the thin line of red seeping through the side of his shirt.