Chapter 20
DOVE
The cable car creaked and groaned, swaying slightly.
The noises blended into a hush of voices, gasps, and the occasional low chuckle from other riders who pointed out the view.
The higher we climbed, the more there was to see.
I inhaled deeply and looked around, noticing the glass—slightly fogged with breath—as the desert fell farther and farther away from us in layers of jarring red and gold.
Ellis had her phone out, capturing more content, and I noticed it was no longer against her will. She actually seemed to be enjoying herself now. She rarely balked at photos, and she didn’t need to be threatened by Liv anymore to start filming.
She would just do it.
Her voice was steady as she quietly murmured behind the phone, narrating to herself what she’d later mute out and replace with a clean, careful voiceover.
She talked about the history of the tramway in that quick, charming way she did, gushing about the view and the altitude.
I leaned my shoulder against a rail and crossed my arms, a self-indulgent smirk tugging at my mouth as I watched her face in the reflection of the mirror—those captivating green eyes full of light and animation.
And it wasn’t fake either.
She wasn’t putting on some practiced face.
Then—bam—Liv’s face suddenly slammed into the glass from the outside, upside down and grinning like a banshee.
“Jesus Christ!” Ellis screeched, nearly flinging her phone into the ceiling. She fumbled with it, wide-eyed, as Liv roared with laughter outside.
A few people in the tram jumped and turned sharply, shock clear on their faces. A boy, maybe eleven, pointed and laughed, while an older couple blinked at her wide-eyed, lips thinned, as if Ellis had just confessed to a murder.
“I’m s-so sorry,” Ellis stammered, her cheeks flushing as she looked around and swallowed. “I—I thought I saw a bird. About to fly into the window.”
I stifled a snort as people turned away from her, muttering under their breath before drifting back into their own conversations.
Ellis faced me, pure mortification written across her face.
Outside, Liv’s cackling faded as she disappeared back onto the roof with the casual disregard of someone who couldn’t die if she lost balance and plummeted into the desert below.
“Horrific,” Ellis mumbled, pocketing her phone.
“Hilarious,” I corrected, grinning as I shook my head. “I don’t know if it’s sad or funny that I was waiting for her to do that. Is it scary I know her so well after only, like, a couple of weeks?”
I kept my voice low. I didn’t need to be the girl talking about someone no one else could see in a packed tram.
“Well, there hasn’t really been a moment apart,” Ellis said with a shrug, an odd expression crossing her face as she turned back to the window. The curve of her neck caught a streak of golden light as she did, and I swallowed hard.
It wasn’t laughter I was trying to bury now.
It was desire.
She looked radiant this evening.
Her cheeks had been flushed since we left the motel, likely because she was overthinking and panicking about tonight, spiraling and stressing, but there was more color in her skin these days, and the warmth suited her.
There was a softness in her eyes now, something far removed from the girl who’d first walked into my shop.
I could still remember that girl—pastel and polite discomfort, with obvious disdain for her surroundings. I’d been so confused at the time. Why had she come into the store when she didn’t believe in what we offered? She’d gently mocked it all at once, while still being as polite as ever.
Now that I knew her, I got it.
I came back to the present, catching the way the sunlight hit her hair, casting flecks of auburn and hazel through the strands.
She was wearing a baby-blue, off-the-shoulder top that made her freckles look like stardust scattered across her shoulders.
Black jeans hugged her legs and ass. White sneakers—still as clean and immaculate as ever.
How her shoes hadn’t been obliterated by now, I would never understand. I had never seen her clean them this entire trip.
The many mysteries of Ellis Langley.
The more time I spent with her—the more I got to know her over the long stretches of road, where it was just the three of us for company—the more I realized she wasn’t some fragile porcelain doll in recovery. And while the journey terrified her, she was doing it anyway.
Maybe I’d never seen anything braver, considering she was clearly almost a recluse.
Or had been.
My thoughts drifted as I looked out through the glass at the expanse of sky, my heart squeezing.
I wondered if Margaret would have liked her.
If my wild, wise grandmother would have seen that same softness in Ellis the moment she entered the store.
If she would’ve overlooked the pastels and the pinched expression instead of fixating on them the way I had.
Would she have seen past the typecast I’d assigned her?
Seen that, beneath Ellis’s guarded shell, there was something gentle and true?
That softness I could feel myself stumbling toward?
I frowned at myself.
Would I ever be as good as Margaret when it came to people?
When it came to delivering the truths the cards wanted told?
I’d finally had a breakthrough with Ellis in that bathroom in Oklahoma—truly seen what she carried, felt it like it was my own—and in that moment, I’d wished I had a spread of cards in front of me.
But it hadn’t happened again.
How did I make it happen again? Margaret could walk down a street and find five people in a minute she could read thoroughly—tell them what they needed to hear—then move on as if she’d just stopped to chat about the weather.
Why couldn’t I do that? Why had she been so hell-bent on the idea that I could?
I let out a heavy sigh, and Ellis turned her head to look at me, her expression questioning. I gave her a weak grin and shook my head with a shrug. She smiled softly and turned back to the window, and I caught the twinkle of her green irises reflected in the glass, lit by the sun.
From the roof of the tram, Liv let out a loud “Cooo-eeey!”—a sound only Ellis and I could hear—and I let out a silent laugh. But what followed wasn’t amusement. It was confusion.
She’d gone from completely broken at the petroglyphs to buzzing, energetic chaos, and the whiplash was real, if I was being honest.
She still couldn’t remember how she died, and I couldn’t forget the way Ellis had looked at me in that moment—desperate, wide-eyed, and silently pleading with me to do something. Liv had looked so afraid, so shattered at the idea of being stuck in this limbo forever. Of never finding peace.
Despite my own lack of confidence, my hands had been itching for a deck of cards ever since. I wanted—needed—to spread them out for Liv. To try to help her.
We were so close to the end of this trip, and I couldn’t help feeling like I’d failed her. I hadn’t asked how she died because it felt rude. But what if I was supposed to ask? Was it really a coincidence that Ellis showed up in my shop so soon after my grandmother died, with a ghost in tow?
Was Margaret testing me? Testing whether her instincts about me had been right? Whether she’d left her store and her legacy to someone worthy?
I took a sobering breath and immediately began to compartmentalize.
I was about to go on a date—a pretty unique one—and the last thing I wanted was to be caught up in my own head.
Especially considering how far down Ellis’s guard had dropped.
I didn’t want to be distant, trapped in my worries and fears, missing the chance to finally get some real answers from her, without a pillow wall between us.
So instead, I took in the moment. The higher the cable car climbed, the smaller the world became beneath us. I mentally snapped a picture and tucked it away for safekeeping.
For when I needed it.
As the tram reached the peak and Ellis mumbled something about being 10,300 feet above sea level, a soft ding filled the space. The doors slid open with a whisper, and a rush of cooler air swept in—fresher, thinner, and sharper at this altitude.
We hung back as the people closest to the door milled out. I reached for Ellis’s hand, lacing my fingers through hers. She didn’t flinch or pull away. Instead, she gave me a devastatingly shy smile and squeezed my hand slightly, her expression open.
We followed the others out, passing hikers, couples, and day-trippers as we made our way toward the observation deck. The platform curved around the peak, offering a view so breathtaking that even Liv—who had been letting out a sarcastic whistle—fell momentarily silent as she took it all in.
The world looked unreal, twisted into layers of orange, red, and copper, with a tinge of bruised purple bleeding across the horizon. The setting sun put on a show for us, casting a golden wash over the landscape that made everything seem dreamy and cinematic.
Everything suddenly felt sacred, way up here, viewing it from the sky.
“I need to do it, Maggie!”
A girl’s voice to my left caught my attention. She gripped the railing, eyes wide and brimming with delight.
“You don’t,” her friend hissed, glancing nervously at the rest of us. “There are people here who—”
But the first girl cut her off with a throaty yell. She clutched the railing and roared into the void, her voice echoing and bouncing off whatever rocks or ridges were close enough to catch it.
A few people jumped. Someone cursed. Ellis let out a startled yelp.
Liv turned with interest toward the girl, then nodded once. She walked to the railing, gripped it with both hands, and threw her head back, letting out her own unheard scream. The sound—at least the shape of it—was so raw and unguarded, a chill settled deep in my bones.
It was the sound of desperation, the kind that can only be masked for so long.