Cassie
Alaska, 2024
It can’t be, she thought.
Except, even while her brain was insisting no and impossible and absolutely not, even as she was thinking that if her sister had had a baby, would have known that, somehow; that she would have felt it like a faraway volcano’s eruption or the aftershocks of a distant earthquake—her eyes were taking in the evidence.
The girl had Zoe’s nose and chin, the same long neck, and even the same tiny earlobes as her sister.
She couldn’t see anything of Russell D’Angelo in this stranger’s face, but she saw plenty of her sister, and it staggered her.
She wasn’t surprised that Zoe had had children.
That was what normal people did.
She was surprised that she was getting to meet one of them, that, after going for so long with no family, this child—this girl who might be Russell’s daughter—had shown up at her door.
The girl—Cherry, remembered, and even that was weird—was wandering around her house, picking things up, putting them down.
Wesley, the little traitor, was following at her heel, tail and ears erect and quivering.
As watched, the girl stood in the center of the room and stretched her arms out, clearly trying to see if she could touch both sides of the house.
It was a near thing.
“How did you find me?”
asked.
The girl puffed out her chest, looking proud.
“I used public records.”
frowned.
“And also, someone posted a video of you on Reddit.”
felt herself go cold.
“What is Reddit?”
“It’s—”
Never mind.
“What video?”
“You were singing ‘Silent Night’ at a supermarket.”
closed her eyes and groaned softly.
Her heart was hammering, and her insides felt like they were shaking apart.
Damage control, she thought.
“Which public records did you use to find me?”
If she knew that, she’d be able to patch the hole.
Stop the leak.
Make sure no one else did what this child had done.
Cherry smiled.
She seemed so much like Zoe: the way she stood, the tilt of her eyes, the set of her shoulders, and her voice was like Zoe’s voice.
“How about this? I’ll answer two questions if you answer two of mine.”
didn’t reply.
She sat, motionless, waiting, until Cherry gave a resigned shrug.
“Okay, I knew you were recently in a Safeway in Alaska from the Reddit thing, so I went there and someone who works there told me you buy lots of cleaning supplies.”
heard the low, pained noise coming from her mouth.
She made herself be quiet, as Cherry continued.
“So I thought you might be a housekeeper, only not in a hotel because they’d buy the stuff.
Then I figured that maybe you owned rental properties.
It’s an easy way to make . . .”
She looked up at the ceiling, clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth.
Zoe used to do exactly the same thing when she was trying to remember something.
“Like, passive income.
I went to city hall and this nice lady helped me do a search.”
She smiled unexpectedly.
“And here I am!”
was trying to breathe through the pain and the shock, even though she felt stabbed.
Gutted.
By the fact that she’d been found, by the revelation that this young woman existed.
She’d missed so much.
“Who knows I’m here? Did you tell anyone else?”
“What, like reporters?”
The girl shook her head.
“No, I haven’t told anyone.
And that video I saw of you, like, disappeared after an hour.
That was what made me sure it was you.
You’ve got someone doing cleanup, right?”
“Not very well, evidently,”
muttered.
There were things she wanted to know—about her sister, about her parents, about the world she’d left behind.
But she wasn’t sure where to start, or how to ask.
More crucially, wasn’t sure what she deserved to know, or how much the things she might learn would hurt her.
She imagined unwrapping an elaborately packaged gift, tugging at silk ribbons until their bows gave way, working her fingers underneath clear tape, unfolding pretty, patterned paper, only to find something bloody and decaying inside.
“You know, you’re still a big deal,”
the young woman with Zoe’s voice said into the silence.
“There’s this Netflix show that’s using your music.”
sliced her hand through the air and shook her head.
She didn’t want to hear about the band or the music.
She didn’t know what she wanted to hear about.
She wanted the girl to leave.
She wanted her never to have come.
She wanted to go back in time and never have gone to the grocery store that night.
Never have opened her stupid mouth.
Never have sung.
Wesley had settled on his belly on the floor, between the two women.
watched his ears swiveling, first toward Cherry, then toward her.
“Your ...your father,”
she began.
“He’s dead,”
Cherry said.
“You know that, though.
You were there, right?”
closed her eyes and didn’t answer.
She didn’t know what to think.
Was Russell really this child’s father? The timing suggested it was possible, and ’s brain did not know what to do with the information.
It just kept spinning, uselessly, stuck on the silliest details, like Haddonfield and PTA and what kind of a name was Cherry, and her body was in full-on fight-or-flight mode.
Her knees were shaking and her heart was thudding and she could taste old pennies in her mouth.
She tried to make herself breathe, make herself think.
If some part of Russell had survived, had lived on, in this girl—that was good news, wasn’t it? Or did it just bring all the awfulness back?
“My turn now,”
said the girl.
She took a step toward , her face intent.
“What happened?”
This time, Wesley did not just swivel his ears.
He turned his entire body toward , sitting up with his eyes bright and focused, like he, too, had been waiting for someone to ask the question, and for to answer.
licked her lips.
“What happened with what?”
she asked, praying for a reprieve.
“What happened to the Griffin Sisters?”
Cherry asked.
“What happened with my father? What happened at the end? That’s what I want to know.
That’s why I’m here.”
She paused and seemed to consider.
“Well, it’s one of the reasons.
My mother won’t tell me anything.
I want to know what happened with my father.
How he died.
And how you ended up”—Cherry made an abrupt, derisive gesture, with her lips pursed—“here.”
“I like it here.”
How he died.
The words were tolling in her mind, like a huge bell that would ring forever.
Cherry rolled her eyes.
“Your house looks like a prison cell.
And it’s fucking freezing out there, and it’s dark all the time.”
“I don’t mind the dark.”
squared her shoulders, still trying to project calm.
“And when the ice caps melt, and the world starts burning, I’m going to be fine.”
Cherry’s voice was low, sweet, and tuneful as she sang.
“And if California slides into the ocean / Like the mystics and statistics say it will / I predict this motel will be standing until I pay my bill.”
Warren Zevon, thought, but did not say.
At least this child knew her rock history.
That was encouraging.
Cherry gave her what was probably meant to be a beguiling smile.
“I’m family,”
she said.
“And I deserve to know.”
considered.
Was this true? Did this girl, with her ratty bleached hair, and the tattoo of a treble clef on the inside of her right wrist, have an actual claim on the truth? She’s going to hate me when she hears it, realized, and maybe that was fair.
Maybe hatred was what she deserved.
Maybe this girl had been sent to her so that would be forced to confess, so she’d have no choice but to tell the whole story and to see the living, breathing consequences of her actions, the end result of the damage she’d done.
“Sit,”
said, pointing at the treehouse’s single folding metal chair.
Cherry sat, looking at , face calm, palms open and resting on her knees.
closed her eyes, allowing herself a single beat of silence.
Then she began.