Chapter 20
I woke up knowing I was alone. It was so much worse than knowing I was sleeping with a ghost in my house.
“Marley?” I whispered anyway. “Are you here?”
The house swallowed my words and gave nothing in return.
Hungover and drained, I nudged the ceramic shards in the kitchen aside with my foot so I could make coffee.
I didn’t dump any more of Annabelle’s special tea but I closed the cabinet so I didn’t have to look at it.
Like I had so many times before I got here, I unlocked my phone and scrolled through meaningless bullshit while I waited for caffeine to make me into a human.
It didn’t. It felt like I lost something yesterday.
I scrolled up to the beginning of the unread messages from Brooke and read her responses to the video of me and Tanesha. She reacted exactly the way I thought she would, saying, “Ummm? Are you singing in a prison???” But she liked the version of the video that I reshared on my own account.
“It’s a long story,” I texted back, adding a chagrined smiling face. “I messed around w/ ur song.”
It felt strange to send the video I’d recorded at Annabelle’s cove to someone else. Like I was sharing a secret that didn’t belong to me. But I uploaded it to a shared drive and sent the link to Brooke anyway. I said, “Let me know what u think, sorry sound is crap.”
Little dots appeared on the bottom of the screen to tell me she was typing, but I didn’t stay and wait for her text.
The song reminded me of Annabelle and so did the tea and the old refrigerator I’d promised to replace.
The house felt haunted again, and I needed to get out.
Annabelle had made her point— she wasn’t coming back.
I’d been ghosted by a literal ghost. At least she hadn’t thrown anything at me, written ominous messages in the mirror, or tried to smother me in my sleep. But I still didn’t want to be in the house without her. She was what made the house feel livable in the first place.
***
I decided to return Sage’s bike. Even though I would have a few days left until Seymour brought the paperwork that would free me from this island, I didn’t intend to spend the time enjoying myself.
Without Annabelle at home waiting to hear about my adventures, what would be the point in having them?
I wheeled Sage’s bike out from the side of the house, then mounted it and rode up the lane, standing up to pedal. The skill had come back to me slowly, like, well, riding a bike.
Instead of turning toward Big Mike’s property, I went the other way, curious about my former neighbor, Mrs. Montclair.
I expected to see a private lane leading from the road down to the house, similar to the ones that led to Abaddon and Big Mike’s.
But the way was blocked by a temporary plastic fence.
The sign forbade entry and warned of penalties for trespassing.
Attached to it was a notice of rezoning and change in occupancy rules, but I didn’t read it.
Another sign with a logo for Compact Development advertised future luxury condos.
Past the barricade, many of the trees had been cleared to level the ground where Mrs. Montclair’s house had once stood.
There wasn’t a house anymore. The foundation was still visible, but dirt and construction equipment replaced the walls, doors, and everything else that made Mrs. Montclair’s house a home.
Dimly, I recalled hearing construction noises the past few days but hadn’t stopped to think about where the noises might be coming from.
A mixture of feelings competed for my attention, then canceled each other out, leaving me numb.
I wondered how much Mrs. Montclair had gotten for her house.
Then remembered Miranda saying that she’d regretted her choice.
Did she know her home would be replaced with boxy generic-looking units?
What would it be like for the future occupants of Abaddon to live next to high-end vacation rentals? And why did I care?
I shook my head and turned my—Sage’s—bike around.
At Big Mike’s, two horses were tied to the fence out front. I recognized Joan Jett the Blackhorse, but the other was a medium-sized dappled gray one I hadn’t seen before. They watched me with placid eyes, swishing their tails as I approached the front door.
Before I could knock, the door opened and Sage stepped out.
“Oh, hey,” I said, feeling unmoored. I held on to the handlebars of Sage’s bike to keep me grounded. “I brought your bike back.”
Sage looked down at the bike. “K. Thanks.”
We stared at each other awkwardly.
I said, “So, um . . .”
A toothy smile spread over Sage’s face. For the first time, I noticed that they still wore braces. Seems they were getting used to dealing with an adult who was every bit as awkward as a teenager. They pointed at the garage. “This way. We can put the bike in the garage.”
As we walked over and Sage entered the code to open the garage door, I asked, “Did you know that the house on the other side of Abaddon was being demolished?”
“Yeah. There’s new stuff being built all over, so I don’t really pay much attention.” Sage shrugged. “I liked Mrs. Montclair. She was old, though, so I’m sure Florida will be nicer.”
“That’s true.”
“Some guy approached my dad a few times about selling our house and the stables. Dad thinks he’s trying to get all the properties in this area to make a new complex and compete with the resorts.
But he was so obnoxious my dad chased him off.
” Sage had a proud smile on their face. “I thought Dad was going to punch him right in the face.”
I chuckled, then froze. I had been incredibly stupid. “Do you remember the guy’s name?”
“Seymour something-or-other. Adam called him See-More Buttcrack.”
Absently, I said, “Anderson. Seymour Anderson.”
I pictured Seymour in the house, laughing at all the things wrong with it.
He’d been humoring me. The developer had no interest in buying Abaddon to resell the house to another family.
He wouldn’t renovate it to make it a home for new year-rounders.
It wouldn’t be a summer house for a rich family to use while they showed their kids what they imagined life was like a century ago.
Seymour wouldn’t tear strips of rose wallpaper off the walls in Yas’s room to replace them with something more modern.
He wouldn’t buy a new fridge to entice buyers, telling them how the electrical panel had been recently redone to accommodate modern appliances.
Compact Development had no interest in the backyard where I’d pictured fairy lights and sang to Annabelle.
They would demolish the garden, which was lying fallow, waiting for a new pair of hands to raise it back to life.
They would remove everything that had ever meant something to the people who’d lived there. Seymour would raze Abaddon to the ground.
What would happen to Annabelle if the house was destroyed?
I pictured her standing in the house as it lost its layers.
Would she start to fade gradually? Would her edges dim as the pieces of the house were removed?
In my mind, Annabelle stood in her alcove, gradually becoming invisible as a bulldozer’s giant claw came closer and closer to her beloved bookcase.
She flickered as the bric-a-brac was cleared and made into rubble.
If the bare walls of the house were an empty skeleton in a dark meadow, Annabelle was its fading heart. As Abaddon lost its foundation, she disappeared altogether.
“Gibson?” Sage waved a hand in front of my face, and I realized I’d been zoning out for who-knows-how long.
“Sorry, I’m a little distracted. I ... I think I was dumped yesterday, and it’s been messing with my mind.”
“You think you were dumped?”
I winced. “I thought I had something special with someone here, but she didn’t feel the same way.”
I could see the wheels turning in Sage’s brain. As they processed, Adam came through the garage and said, “Hey, Gibson.”
“Hey, Adam.” I waved. In my back pocket, my phone buzzed with a new series of texts from Brooke.
Seeing the name of the contact on the screen, Sage said, “I can’t believe you’re friends with a famous rock star.”
“Fuck buddies, yes. These days I’m not so sure about friends,” I said before I could stop the words “fuck buddies” from coming out of my mouth in front of an eleven-year-old. “Oh, fuck. I said ‘fuck.’ Twice.”
Adam held up three fingers. “Three times.”
Sage couldn’t stop laughing. But my phone kept buzzing—Brooke was calling now.
“Sorry, guys.” I turned away from the garage and answered. “Hey, what’s up?”
There was a burst of static from her end. “I can’t talk, but ... wanted you to ... before you saw it online ...”
“Brooke? I can barely hear you.”
“Just want you to know ... hard decision ... we’ll talk when you get home. The band just needed someone reliable.”
“What?” I took the phone from my ear and stared at it as if I could somehow make the reception get better by willing it. “Brooke?”
“It’s not personal, Gibson! I gotta go.” The call disconnected.
“Not personal?” I muttered. “Someone reliable ... Oh, fuck, no. They didn’t.”
They did. On the band’s Instagram page, Stephani With One E was smiling and holding her prissy pink guitar next to Ivan and his bass. The caption read: “welcome @stephan1 to Call Me Kate! we’re dropping the Kane and a new song on Thursday! come check out the show! ticket info in bio”
“Shit. Fuck.” My stomach dropped. “Shit. They really replaced me.” The kids stared at me, and I realized I was still swearing up a storm in front of them. “I’m so sorry. You didn’t hear any of those words from me.”
Sage made a zipper motion across their lips.
Adam raised his eyebrows in the most withering look I’d ever seen on a kid. “I’m eleven. I hear worse every single day.”