Chapter Sixteen
You and Caleb sit in the main bathroom with the first aid kit. His face whitens from the pain, but he shows you how to sew up his shoulder. You’re pleased that your stitches come out small and neat. Elijah isn’t the only one with cold, clever fingers.
Downstairs, the house buzzes from the drone of a table saw.
Nails and men’s harsh voices hammer into the walls.
The light begins to vanish from the ground-floor windows, like stars winking out.
At least they’re not going to touch the sunroom; they’ve only blocked the side door with an empty dumpster.
You just won’t look out that way. You can still admire the woods through the plastic.
And you can sit on the loveseat and watch Elijah paint.
His sprained fingers will eventually heal, but in the meantime, he’ll teach himself to hold a paintbrush in his left hand.
You kiss Caleb and help him button up his shirt.
Something downstairs smells delicious, so you both head to the kitchen.
Elijah has already set the table. Isaac’s wife Judy has dropped off a pot roast, handed through the gap they left in the boards over the front door.
It sits on the kitchen table, steaming, with your cleaned paring knife stuck in it.
The knife is small, but it’s sharp, and anyway, it’s the only knife in the house.
Elijah’s eye is swollen shut, and the open neck of his shirt displays Ben’s bruises like a necklace.
The gift of a dead man. No, a disappeared man.
At night, you’ll lie awake in Caleb’s arms and hear Ben screaming with the others in the woods.
He doesn’t whisper in your head anymore, because it was your voice all along.
When the two weeks are up and they take down the plywood, you know you will stay at Sweetside Manor.
You’re finally free here. Caleb will keep you safe, and the two of you keep Elijah safe.
Beautiful Elijah, with the face of an angel and the soul of a killer.
You know, because you share the same soul.
Uncle Isaac will come by asking about Ben, and the three of you will tell him he paid his dues to the Suicide Motel.
Ben’s family will be unsurprised, and the investigation will end there.
They’ll retrieve his grey coat, and Ben’s mother will ask if you want to keep it.
Sometimes you’ll put it on like you’re wearing his skin, like Elijah wears Jacob Vass’s shearling.
It won’t smell like him anymore. It’ll smell of the woods.
When the snow thaws, you and Caleb will plant what’s left of Ben out back.
Or maybe in the foundation of a new extension on the house, extending from the parlor.
You’ll pick out paint swatches and put up drywall.
It’ll be nice to work with your hands again.
You’ll keep the plastic slipcovers on Grandma Sweet’s sofa, however. It makes it easier to clean.
When the vaccine rolls out and restrictions lift, you’ll help Caleb write the guest wing’s description on Airbnb, and Elijah will show tourists where to hike and fish. Graham will even visit, but you’ll let him leave unharmed. He did try to rescue you, after all, before you knew you belonged here.
And sometimes you will tell dangerous men with storms inside them that the woods scream at night, but it’s all right, they can scream back and no one will hear. No one except you and Elijah and the knives you’re not supposed to have.
But at this moment, the three of you take your places at the table, around the pot roast and green beans and mashed potatoes.
You know you will never leave the Vass brothers, and they will never leave you.
Caleb takes your hand, and you know he loves you.
And fears you. As much as you love and fear him.
Elijah takes your other hand. Squeezes it tightly.
You smile at him. He trembles a little. He’s as scared of your bland smile as you fear his soulful eyes.
Such a beautiful boy. So beautiful, so sweet.
But rotten on the inside. Just like you. You belong together.
You wonder if anyone can see you through the windows, even though they’re almost finished boarding them up.
You wonder if any of the townspeople are peeping through the cracks right now at the city girl and the strange brothers who run the Suicide Motel.
It’s too bad if they aren’t. They’ll never know what a beautiful family you are.
If they knew, they would love and fear you, too.
“Let us give thanks,” you say.
THE END