Chapter 64 Ash
ASH
“CARO?” ASH ASKS. “YOU didn’t answer my question. And I have another one for you.” They are walking, almost running, down the gravel road. Ash tastes dust in her mouth.
“What’s the real story about the mom who died in delivery?
” Ash asks. “And why is it killing you? Because that happens. It’s horrible, but it happens, and you must have seen it before.
And if anyone were to blame, it would likely be the ob/gyn.
” Ash pauses. “Did something go wrong that you’re not telling us about?
” And then, one more question, she can’t help herself even though, out of the corner of her eye, she sees unflappable Caro flinch: “Did you do something? Did you make a mistake?”
The moment the words are out of her mouth, she wants them back. Next to her, Caro stumbles, puts a fist to her mouth. Who among us could bear all this scrutiny? Ash wonders. What person in all the world doesn’t have something they want to hide, secrets they want to keep?
“We’re all hiding something.” Caro takes a deep, almost-gasping breath. “Ash, you too.” She looks Ash full in the eyes. “You’ve always been obsessed with Hope. You know more about Hope’s disappearance than you’re saying, don’t you?”
“What?” Ash says, but her response is too fast, the answer too at-the-ready. They have stopped walking, they are looking at each other, and Ash has a terrible thought.
“What if there is no lurker?” She can’t believe she’s wondering this, she can’t believe she’s saying it, but as she looks in Caro’s eyes, she sees she’s wondering it, too. “What if it’s one of us?” Us. Hope, Ash, Caro. And with Hope gone, that leaves—
—the two of them.
They’ve arrived at the cemetery up on a knoll away from the rest of the ghost town.
It feels like a proverbial tumbleweed could roll across their path.
Farther down the road, the cottonwood trees lining it have ancient trunks so twisted and knotted that they look like the wrists of giants, all elevated lines and straining sinews.
As the dirt road continues, it falls into ill-repair, and Ash sees the remnants of the town—a church and several houses.
But there are no trees here at the cemetery. And it is not near the church.
Both of these things feel strange to Ash.
The pioneer settlers of southern Utah were big on planting trees everywhere else.
So why not here? Why not for their dead?
Only the dusty hill behind the burial ground offers any measure of shelter from the wind and the sun that burn their way across the land.
And there is no grass, only dirt. The graves are mounded over, as if they are recent. It chills her how they don’t lie flat, how the mounds call to mind a body, something human.
“Why are they aboveground?” Ash asks. “Wouldn’t it be easy enough to dig here?”
“I don’t know,” Caro says.
The iron gate is padlocked shut. It’s flanked on either side by two plastic evergreen wreaths, which have been tied to the gates with twine. The fence comes up to Ash’s waist. It would be easy enough to hop over, but it feels like a desecration.
They walk silently along the fence, looking in at the graves.
Ash breaks the quiet. “It’s weird. Some of these stones are the same age, but some are so much more worn than others.
And who would have expected the wooden ones would last so well?
” They are splintered and beaten but remarkably legible.
Many of the sandstone ones have been worn down, the details and dates erased.
“You disappear eventually no matter what,” Caro says quietly.
There’s a newer stone at the back, some kind of shiny granite laid almost flat into the ground, but they can’t get close enough to see it without climbing the fence. So they leave the graveyard behind and walk toward the town.
It’s still and hot. But the desert evening drop in temperature is coming, Ash can feel it. She’s afraid. It’s colder, too, because of what they have said to one another, things that can’t be taken back.
“We’re so far away from where we last saw Hope,” Caro says. “How would she even get here?” She glances at Ash. “Do you know?”
“The lurker wanted to drive us apart,” Ash says.
“We can’t let them.” She takes a deep breath.
Am I really going to do this? She is. “And you’re right.
I’ve been keeping something from you.” They’re almost to the town.
The dirt their feet kick up stings her eyes, but she’d be crying anyway even without it.
“Hope intended to disappear in the Underground all along.”
“What?” Caro pulls up short. They’re in the middle of the road.
“She wanted to use herself as bait for the lurker,” Ash says. “She thought that if she disappeared, they’d follow her, and we’d be safe.”
“And you let her do that? I thought we were going to do this together!”
Now the tears are spilling down Ash’s cheeks. “You think that anyone could ‘let’ Hope do anything?”
“What the hell was she thinking?” Caro asks. “She’d draw off someone who’d been stalking us and—what?” Her fists are clenched and the muscles in her neck are taut. “Why didn’t she tell me?”
“She didn’t tell me,” Ash says. “I figured it out. She was acting weird. I could tell she was hiding something. So I asked her what was going on.”
“And the two of you didn’t decide to fill me in?”
“We were trying to protect you,” Ash says. “And it’s not like Hope told me everything, even when I figured part of it out.”
The cliffs around them are burning orange as the sun keeps on coming down.
“Hope trusted you more,” Caro says. “It’s as simple as that.” But her voice sounds lighter, and Ash knows what she’s about to ask.
“So she’s okay?” Caro’s voice is bright with hope. “I can’t believe it. We saw her fall.”
But we didn’t see her land.
“I don’t know.” Ash’s heart aches. “I don’t know when she was planning on taking off on her own, but I don’t think it was right then. The flood—”
“Right.” Caro’s voice is grim again. “Even Hope Hanover can’t predict or control the weather.”
But Ash desperately wants Caro to keep hoping. She can’t do it alone. “I know she had canyoneering equipment with her in her backpack. She’d been rappelling before, and she also did a lot of climbing lessons at one point for her role in Downfall.”
“But none of this is what we agreed on,” Caro says. “We were supposed to stick together to lure the lurker. We never planned for one of us to go off on our own.”
“We didn’t,” Ash says. “Hope had other ideas. I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you, Caro.”
“It’s too late for that now.” Caro’s words sound bitten off at the edges. She’s angry. Ash doesn’t blame her, but she’s angry, too.
“Nothing went like she planned,” Ash says, after a moment.
They are leaving footprints in the fine sandy dust of the road.
“I don’t know if Hope’s still alive. I’ve been getting the same texts you are.
” She laughs bitterly. “You accused me of being obsessed with her and of keeping things from you. I’m not obsessed with her, but I love her.
Like I love you. And I did what she asked.
That’s all. You don’t have to believe me, but I’d do the same for you, too.
” She licks her lips. Her mouth is so dry.
“I’m not saying that’s a good thing. I’m saying it’s true. ”
“I do believe you,” Caro says, after a pause.
And then, here they are. In the town. A sandstone church with a wooden cupola stands across the street.
Why sandstone for graves and churches? Ash wonders.
Did they not know how fast it would erode?
Did they care that they were making the monument to their faith out of the softest, slipperiest stone?
They walk through the two-story house nearest the church.
It’s the fanciest dwelling in town, with gingerbread trim.
It would be so much work to have anything nice out here, to keep a flower bed alive, to carve and then to protect and repaint any ornamentation you tried to have against the elements.
Nothing. The house is quiet except for their echoing footsteps on the old wooden floors.
“Do you—” Ash stops. She bites her lip. “Do you feel like we’re being… guided?”
“By Hope?”
“No.” That’s not quite it.
“Like by God?” Caro asks, sounding profoundly skeptical.
“No,” Ash says. Her eyes dart back and forth. She’s searching for words. “Something not as… benevolent.”
Caro waits.
“Directed,” Ash says finally. “Like, without our knowledge.”
They leave the house and walk down its splintered steps.
The one next to them has a barbed-wire fence around it and a PRIVATE PROPERTY sign, though it doesn’t look like it’s been well taken care of or visited in years. Caro walks right up to the fence.
“Don’t you feel it?” Ash says, and Caro looks over her shoulder, her eyes flashing.
“Yeah,” Caro says. “I do. I’ve been feeling it the whole time.” She finds a spot in the fence without a barb, presses it down, and climbs over. Her injured leg almost catches on a barb farther down the wire, and Ash’s breath hitches in her throat.
“Caro,” Ash says, “be careful,” and then she notices where Caro’s heading.
There’s a shed behind the house. Dilapidated but intact. And there’s a car inside.
You’d only park inside that shed if you didn’t want anyone to know you were here.
It can’t be Hope who’s here. Can it?
“Caro,” Ash says, low. “Come back. Let’s call the police.”
“You do that,” Caro says. “Now. Keep your voice down. Tell them we’re in Afton and that we might have found Hope Hanover.” She’s still now, her body wired, tense. Can she hear something Ash can’t? Ash is frozen in place.
And then Caro goes into the house alone.
“Wait,” Ash says. This is a very, very bad idea. Ash puts her hands on the fence to climb over. Can she do it? Caro’s so much taller, and the fence is high.
But it’s only moments before Caro is back out. “Nothing in the house,” she says. “The shed—”
And then the screaming begins.