Gillian abruptly pulls away from Ben. “You have to go,” she tells him. “Now.”
She kisses him deeply and pledges all sorts of things, love promises she won’t even remember until the next time they’re in bed and he reminds her. She works hard, and at last she wins.
“You’re sure about this?” Ben says, confused by how hot-and-cold she is, but wanting more all the same. “You could spend the night at my place.”
“Tomorrow,” Gillian vows. “And the next night and the night after that.”
When at last Ben leaves, when she’s watched out the front window to make certain he’s really gone, Gillian goes into the yard and stands motionless beneath the murky sky. It is the hour when the crickets first begin to call out a warning, their song quickened by the humidity of the coming storm. At the rear of the yard the hedge of thorns is twisted and dense. Gillian walks closer and sees that two wasps’ nests hang from the branches; a constant buzzing resonates, like a warning issued, or a threat. How is it possible for these brambles to have grown unnoticed? How could they have allowed it to happen? They believed him to be gone, they wished it to be so, but some mistakes come back to haunt you again and again, no matter how certain you are that they’ve finally been put to rest.
As she stands there, a fine drizzle begins, and that’s what makes Kylie come after her, the fact that her aunt is standing out there all alone, getting wet without seeming to notice.
“Oh, no,” Kylie says when she sees how tall the hedge of thorns has grown since she and Gideon played chess on the lawn.
“We’ll just cut them down again,” Gillian says. “That’s what we’ll do.”
But Kylie shakes her head. No clippers could get through those thorns, not even an ax would do. “I wish my mom would get home,” she says.
Laundry has been left on the line, and if it stays out it will be soaked, but that’s not the only problem. The hedge of thorns is giving off something nasty, a mist you can barely see, and the hems of each sheet and shirt have become blotchy and discolored. Kylie may be the only one who can see it, but every stain on their clean laundry is deep and dark. Now she realizes why she hasn’t been able to imagine their vacation, why it’s all been a blank inside her head.
“We’re not going to the aunts’,” she says.
The branches of the hedge are black, but anyone who looks carefully will see that the thorns are as red as blood.
Puddles are collecting on the patio by the time Antonia pushes open the back door. “Are you guys crazy?” she calls. When Gillian and Kylie don’t answer, she takes a black umbrella from the coat rack and runs out to join them.
A storm with near-hurricane-force winds has been predicted for late tomorrow. Other people in the neighborhood have heard the news and have gone out to buy rolls of masking tape; when the wind arrives to rattle their windows, the glass will be held together with X’s of tape. It’s the Owens house that’s in danger of being blown off its foundation.
“Great way to start a vacation,” Antonia says.
“We’re not going,” Kylie tells her.
“Of course we’re going,” Antonia insists. “I’m already packed.”
In her opinion, it’s truly creepy out tonight; it makes no sense to be standing here in the dark. Antonia shivers and considers the overcast sky, but she doesn’t look away long enough to miss seeing that her aunt has grabbed Kylie’s arm. Gillian holds on tight to Kylie; if she dared to let go she might not be able to stand on her own. Antonia looks to the rear of the yard, and then she understands. There’s something under those horrible thornbushes.
“What is it?” Antonia asks.
Kylie and Gillian are breathing a little too quickly; fear is rising off them in waves. It’s possible to smell fear like this; it’s a little like smoke and ashes, like flesh that’s come too close to a fire.
“What?” Antonia says. As soon as she takes a step toward the bushes, Kylie pulls her back. Antonia squints to see through the shadows. Then she laughs. “It’s just a boot. That’s all it is.”
It’s snakeskin, one of a pair that cost nearly three hundred dollars. Jimmy would never go to Western Warehouse or anyplace like that. He liked more expensive shops; he always preferred items that were one-of-a-kind.
“Don’t go over there!” Gillian says when Antonia starts to retrieve the boot.
The rain is coming down hard now; there’s a curtain of it, gray as a blanket of tears. In the place where they buried him, the earth looks spongy. If you reached your hand in, you might just be able to pluck out a bone. You might be dragged down yourself, if you weren’t careful, deep into the mud, and you’d struggle and you’d try to draw a breath, but it wouldn’t do the least bit of good.