Chapter 26
The hallucinations begin midway through the third day.
At first, they’re subtle—little tricks of light, fleeting apparitions that disappear in a blink.
Then, Grace notices a rock that’s sprouted legs and a tail, and a face that looks uncannily like Boone.
The rock-dog even seems to be panting, as if it, too, is suffering in this perilous heat.
But when Grace steps closer to get a better look, it morphs back into stone, faceless and unmoving.
She doesn’t think much of the various weird occurrences, chalking them up to exhaustion more than anything.
She certainly doesn’t anticipate them turning vivid and lifelike and unsettlingly real, the way they do at daybreak on the fourth day, when a mirage in the shape of her mother takes form in the middle of the field.
Grace does a double take upon seeing her, and she freezes midway through hauling a particularly heavy boulder into the wheelbarrow.
She drops it at her feet and stares, confused by the scene—her mother, ten years younger than she was when she died, kneeling down and delicately, methodically picking wildflowers from the ground.
And the thing is—Grace knows on some level that it isn’t real.
She also knows that seeing this in such detail is a telltale sign that she’s on the verge of succumbing to the heat.
But some other, more demanding part of her refuses to let her be rational.
It claws its way to the surface and commands her: Go. Go see. Go be with her.
Grace walks toward her mother on gliding feet; the rocks disappear and are replaced with soft, thick grass.
Her boots are cushioned and held with each footfall, like she’s stepping on tufts of green, bladed clouds.
Her mother does not look up as she approaches—she stays focused on her task, and there’s a contented little smile on her lips as she pulls a particularly vibrant bluebonnet out of a thatch of its brothers and sisters.
She stares at it admiringly, then blinks up at Grace and says, “Do you remember what I told you about picking wildflowers?”
Lowering herself onto her knees, Grace settles two feet away from her mother, close enough that she could reach out and touch her cheek, her daisy-patterned sundress, but too scared that she’d ruin it with her dirty fingertips.
Too scared that she’d disappear if something from this outside world, this terrible reality, touched her.
Grace’s voice is raspy and weak when she responds, thick with unshed tears.
“They have to seed first,” she says, staring at her mother’s hands—olive toned and calloused with nimble fingers, lithe and long and topped with unpolished, well-kept nails.
“And why do they have to seed first, my saving Grace?”
Grace’s eyelids drop shut at the endearment.
A tear falls down her cheek—hot and unexpected.
My saving Grace, her mother used to call her, even when it couldn’t possibly have been true.
She’d say it for reasons as benign as clearing the dinner table and washing up, or sweeping the front porch when the leaves overtook everything in the fall.
She’d say it routinely—when she kissed her good night, when she kissed her goodbye, when she needed a favor.
Grace’s nostrils flare as she resists the urge to give in and let herself sob, and she takes a deep, steadying breath before opening her eyes again.
Her mother is still here, still in such high resolution that Grace can see beads of sweat gathering at her hairline.
Chestnut-brown strands giving way to deep chocolate.
“Because if you pick them before they seed, they won’t grow back next year. You have to let them live first.”
Her mother nods, satisfied and proud of Grace’s answer.
“That’s right, honey. Wildflowers have to be allowed their wildness.
” She caresses the tops of the remaining bluebonnets, ones she will leave unplucked.
“It isn’t illegal to pick bluebonnets in Texas.
That’s a myth. But you still have to be gentle with them. ”
“Even if they’re wild,” Grace adds quietly.
Her mother smiles. “Especially then.”
Grace’s jaw tightens. Her hands itch to reach out; her body yearns to fall into her mother’s arms and cry into her neck. “I miss you.” Her voice is thick with all the cries she continues to suppress. “I miss you every day.”
Though her smile does not fade, her mother’s eyes take on a hint of sadness. An almost imperceptible wrinkle forms between her brows. “I haven’t gone anywhere, Grace.”
“You have,” Grace counters. “You aren’t here. I’m alone.”
“Never,” her mother says, and it’s then that the smile on her lips begins to dampen slightly, the corners pulling down the tiniest bit. “Not for one second.”
Grace shakes her head, disbelieving and frustrated. “Don’t do that—don’t offer me that mystical I’ll always be with you in your heart bullshit. You aren’t here, Momma. I am here. I am alone. I’m in hell, and I can’t escape it.”
The wildflowers fall from her mother’s hands, landing softly atop the grass.
Before she realizes what’s happening, Grace feels a soft, warm palm at her cheek.
Her mother is touching her, caressing her—she doesn’t understand, can’t make herself rationalize this, so instead, she leans into her grip, letting her wipe away a few errant tears with the pad of her thumb.
“Brave girl,” her mother whispers. Her smile is gone entirely now, replaced with the kind of sadness that is felt by all mothers and daughters separated too soon.
Grace lets herself cry then. She sobs into her mother’s palm with abandon; she lets herself feel the pain she so diligently hides away alongside the rose-tinted memories of her life when it was just the two of them. “Please,” she begs, though she does not know what for.
“My tamer of horses. My wildflower.” She strokes Grace’s cheekbone with the edge of her thumb in gentle, repetitive motions. “Who tames you?” Her fingertips embed themselves softly into the hair at Grace’s temple. “Who protects your wildness?”
Grace’s sobs begin to subside at her mother’s questions. Her watery eyes reopen, and she sees something like a smile returning to mother’s face. Her lovely, freckle-strewn face, unmarred by the fists of evil incarnate.
“The gardener,” her mother says matter-of-factly. Like it’s the most obvious answer in the world. For a brief moment, she looks over Grace’s shoulder, staring past her, and that hint of a smile on her lips turns knowing. “His shift begins soon.”
Grace hiccups, her head tilting in confusion. She’s never been very adept at deciphering metaphors, and she certainly isn’t in a state to make sense of her dead mother’s cryptic words. But then, behind her, a voice cuts through the quiet chirping of crickets, the rustle of deadening leaves.
“Grace.”
Her heart skips; her breath hitches in her throat, lodging a hiccup on its way to her mouth.
She knows that voice—knows it from her dreams, from her fantasies, from the whispers of its warmth into her ear, her skin.
Her lips. The sound of it, the tone and pitch—it’s so much more than just a voice.
It’s a fresh cup of steaming black coffee before dawn.
It’s the river song of gentle lapping waves hitting the mossy banks of a beloved creek.
It’s the sweetest kind of authority, the command to be still, to trust, to feel, to love. It’s home in the form of a sound.
It’s Crew.
Grace’s head swivels around at breakneck speed because her mother’s strange prophecy suddenly makes perfect sense, because there’s only one person who understands how to thread the needle of Grace—there’s only one person who can quiet the screaming regret, the blaring anxiety, the echoing shame.
One person who knows how to stand aside and let her wildness spread its wings, all the while keeping a steady, gentle hand at her back to remind her she can always fly back home. Back to him.
Grace’s heartbeat begins to pick up speed, begins to squeeze pleasantly in her chest at the thought of seeing him. Laying her eyes on him after almost a week without, letting them feast on the sight of his big hands and shoulders and his perfect, crooked smile.
But when she turns, she doesn’t find Crew standing behind her.
She finds nothing at all. A vacant, sun-drenched field still covered in patches of rocks.
And when she looks back to her mother, ready to scream, yell, and cry at her for such a cruel trick, she finds nothing again.
The space her mother had occupied, the flowers she’d tended have all disappeared, contorting back into something uglier, harsher.
Realer. The grass below her feet is no longer soft and welcoming. She is, once again, completely alone.