Chapter Eleven
Noa
After the Harvest Moon, we sleep until one in the afternoon.
I’m the first awake—which never happens—but I stay exactly where I am because moving would be a crime.
Valli is asleep on Cave’s chest with her hand curled in Cipher’s shirt, and he is asleep while half-sitting against the headboard.
I am lying on the other side of Cipher, and Cave has an arm slung over all of us, even if only the tips of his fingers touch me.
As I lie here, my mom’s words ring through my head, the ones about me loving everybody so hard my chest hurts.
I try to focus on anything else: the snoring scarecrow, Cipher drooling, Valli wearing my hoodie.
They are all mine. I might love them too hard, but they are all equipped to handle my kind of love.
Valli’s stomach growls, and Cave wakes—so does Cipher.
We all stay there in silence for almost five minutes before Valli stirs.
Finally, I slip out of bed to get a head start on making breakfast. It might be two in the afternoon, but for us it’s time for breakfast, so I make pancakes.
Cipher is next to come out, and he turns on the coffeemaker.
We work together until Cave and Valli come out freshly showered, and they set the table.
Once the pancakes are done, I place them in the center of the table. Valli grabs a couple and loads hers with maple syrup.
“So how long have you three been planning my kidnapping?”
“Eleven days,” Cipher answers.
“Twelve,” I correct him. “If you count the day Cave came up with the idea.”
Her eyebrows go up. “It was Cave’s idea?”
“Yup,” I say, shoving a mouthful of pancake in. “He stole your file, put the page with your fears down on the table, and gave us the look.” I mimic Cave’s look, and Valli chokes on her coffee. “And that was it. Cipher said, and I quote, ‘okay,’ and then we started planning.”
“We had rehearsals,” Cipher interjects.
“Sorry, we had rehearsals,” I confirm proudly. “I was you and got kidnapped nine times. Though Cave dropped me twice, which is why the route changed. I also did your scream so we could see how far the sound carried. Everyone agreed it was uncanny.”
“Nobody agreed,” Cipher says, shaking his head.
“Cave did.”
Cave, who is already on his second serving of pancakes, also shakes his head. Ouch! Such betrayal while eating a breakfast I made.
“What about my phone dying three steps into the cemetery? It was almost at full charge since I had it plugged in at Nixie’s office.”
Cipher’s ears go pink. “Your phone’s on the island’s network now. I had a little help from Clay. It came back on before we hit the bluff.”
“That is the most terrifying thing any of you have ever done.”
“Thank you,” Cipher says with a smile.
She stares at him for a second, then leans across the syrup and kisses him, and his ears go from pink to red.
“One more question.” She wipes her thumb across Cipher’s jaw where he had a smidge of syrup. “Whose idea was the bluff?”
Cave taps his chest.
“Of course it was. And the bag over my head?”
He nods. Cave planned almost every step, walking the path to make sure there were no obstacles in our way so we didn’t drop her, and he may have killed us if we did. Hence, most of the time it was him and Cipher carrying her.
She gets up from her seat and goes to him, and he pulls her onto his lap. She says something into his neck, and whatever it is, his eyes close.
Cleanup of the island starts around three; Nixie has no time for mess.
We all walk together as far as we can until the path splits.
Valli has to head to the office, Cipher to pack away the generators, Cave to his field, and me to my dead people, or lack of dead people.
Valli kisses all three of us goodbye, and I watch Cave stare at her until she is out of sight.
Then he stands there another few seconds, watching the empty path until I bump his shoulder.
“We will see her at dinner. It’s a shift, not her walking away.”
He looks at me and taps my chest once. Then he peels off toward the corn, and I bounce off toward the cemetery to see what needs to be done.
I love the island after Harvest Moon. Everybody works together and is nice, which is deeply unnatural for us.
It usually lasts about three days, and then it’s back to normal.
I head toward the main part of the island first, needing trash bags, as I forgot to bring them from the shed.
I cut through the alley and Rue flags me down from the bar, telling me before I go home to pick up the food he has made for us.
“Nixie is in a good mood. So feed your girl, we need you to keep her happy. I think she is a good fit here.”
I laugh at Rue. “I keep her more than happy,” I say with a wink.
His face pulls up in disgust. “The numbers came in this morning. We broke every record.”
Right on cue, I hear Nixie—her voice carries when she is happy. “Next year we are doing it bigger and better, and you will be running a zone.”
I step forward to where I can see Valli’s face; she isn’t sure what to say. I grin the rest of the way to getting the garbage bags from the storage room.
On my way back, I snort when I see a crate of tomatoes on the security office steps. There is a note on the crate, and I’m nosey so I take a peek.
Sorry about the footage, you know what I mean;)
The office door is open, and Vesper is sitting in front of the wall of screens with a tomato in her hand, the Jester standing to her right.
“You watched it back?” he says, sounding delighted about something.
“I watch everything back. It’s one of my jobs.”
“But you liked it, didn’t you?”
Vesper throws the tomato at his head, and he catches it, then takes a bite. “Needed one more day on the vine,” he muses.
I keep walking and find Cipher behind a theme park ride, halfway under the contraption, his boots and legs sticking out like the machine is eating him.
There are parts laid out on a tarp beside him in a perfect line, left to right, and I know better than to touch any of them.
I’ve done it before, and he didn’t talk to me for a day and a half.
“Knock, knock,” I say, tapping on the machine.
“I’m busy, Noa.”
“You’re always busy. What’s wrong with it?”
“Nothing. I figured it was time to give him a service. He just ran for nine hours straight, so I thought he deserved one.”
“You gave a machine a gender?”
“Of course I did. You can’t tell me he doesn’t seem manly.”
I laugh and sit on the tarp, passing him the wrench when he asks.
“You know what I realized?” I say. “You’re fixed.”
His hand pauses. “What?”
“Your chest. You reached all the way across, and three weeks ago you couldn’t even lift the wrench I passed you without pulling a little face.”
“I don’t have a little face.”
“You have a whole face, buddy, and it does things.” I knock my knuckles against the machine he is working on. “I just noticed, is all.”
He comes out to look at me, wiping his hands on the rag that lives in his back pocket, and for a second, he doesn’t say anything.
“Go rake your dead people.”
“Love you too. Dinner’s at seven. Rue made us paella, and if you’re late, Cave gets your share.”
I wander off to the cemetery, but there isn’t much to do here.
My zone always fares well because fake dead people are pre-scared and don’t do any damage.
Mostly I have to rake and reset the props.
One headstone is crooked where some hero has obviously tried to climb on it.
My favorite part is when I sweep up everything guests have left behind when they’re running for their lives.
This year’s Harvest Moon haul is laid out on the tomb I use for sorting—four phones, one shoe, a set of keys, a single glove filled with candy corn, and one engagement ring.
I take it all to the front office in case people call to find their stuff and leave it with Khodi.
He tells me the man was just on the phone asking about the ring.
He proposed to his girlfriend last night in the cemetery, and apparently I must have chosen that moment to scare the life out of them and he dropped it.
I’m sitting in the shade of the alleyway when the Jester finds me.
“Gravedigger, a favor.”
“Anything for a man who scares Vesper.”
“Can I borrow the hearse tonight? A prop run. Big, awkward load. Just to the mainland dock and back.”
“She’s all yours.” I dig the keys out of my pocket and toss them over. “Want a hand loading? I’m free after dinner, and I’m stronger than I look.”
“No, no. You’d ask questions about the prop and it’s a surprise.”
“Don’t mind the stereo—the cassette is stuck in there. If you get pulled over, the paperwork’s in the glove box. And please film the officer’s face if you do.”
“You are a lifesaver. I’ll have her back before you even know she is missing.” He spins the keys once around his finger, salutes me, and saunters off down the alleyway.
I get up and try to find something else to do, so I swing past the cornfield.
Cave is deep in the rows, resetting his snares and adjusting the extra scare rigging Cipher helped him with for the event. I tell him about my day, and he keeps working and tolerates me for about twenty minutes before he grabs me and pulls me into his chest, causing my knees to buckle.
It’s an effective way to shut me up.
He points to the path and I laugh. “I’m going, I’m going. But maybe grab me like that again soon.”
By the time I get back to the shed, it’s time to put Rue’s food in the oven like he said.
Cipher and Valli come in not long after, so I shower and smile when I come back out.
Cipher is at his workbench, and Valli is cross-legged on the rug with paperwork spread out around her, hair up in a messy bun, pen in her teeth.
I stand back and stare; this is what home feels like.
“What’s that face for?” I ask Valli.
“Hmm? Nothing. Vendor log.” She frowns at the slip of paper in her hand. “Meal deliveries were billed to the residential area. There’s a house number on here that isn’t assigned to anyone.”
“Babe, the kitchen’s been feeding overtime crews and Rue’s system is a shoebox and vibes.”
She smiles when I call her babe. I think I like it, and she didn’t shut me down.
“Yeah.” She taps the slip against her knee. But she doesn’t put it back in the stack; instead, she puts it in a separate file. “Probably just a logging error.”
“Probably,” I agree.
Cave comes in around dusk, and as he is covered in dirt, he is directed straight into the shower by Valli. Cipher and I drag the table outside under the string lights I set up. It’s a nice night, and the fire plus the lights make the area look beautiful.
Cave carries Valli out, already on her chair. We all sit around the table and tell stories about things we saw at the Harvest Moon. Well, mainly I talk and everyone else laughs. Halfway through dinner, Leni video calls, and the phone gets propped against the salt so she can review our kidnapping.
“Four stars,” she says. “I have to deduct a point because no one filmed it for me, and I have never seen my sister scared. I think she might be a robot.”
“That’s not fair,” Valli says. “I am only scared of losing you, so you will never see it.”
“Change of conversation. I have decided that I’m cooking for Christmas. I thought I should inform you so that you can plan accordingly.”
We all vote yes before Valli can shut it down.
I know she is afraid that Leni coming back will not be a good thing.
She wanted her sister far away from everything so she could start a new life, but Leni wants Valli in her life.
I think they will both love Christmas on Fear Island.
It’s a magical day. A lot of our families come to visit, and we shut down for a week.
No work, no chasing—just friends and family coming together.
I never thought I would love anything again in this life, having been warned that I love way too hard.
I spent so long being careful with my hands and only trusting myself with a shovel, not wanting to hold on too tight.
But I love these three harder than I have ever loved anything before, and they’re not breaking.
It turns out you can hold on with everything you’ve got, so long as what you’re holding wants to hold you too.
Valli falls asleep at the table, and none of us wake her. Cave simply stands and lifts her, and she stirs enough to grab his jacket. Cipher helps him while I put out the fire and bring in the plates.
This is my life now, and nobody is taking it away from me.