Chapter 56

Author's Preface

I don't know how long I had been staring at the dark outline of the barn before Elise called me over and helped me to the kitchen chair.

The kitchen light felt too yellow, too bright, illuminating the medical kit I'd seen her use on Jack before.

Hailey stood by my side, impatient, her weight shifting from one leg to the other.

I sat carefully, teeth clenched as my shoulder protested, and let Elise push my jacket off inch by inch. Her hands were steady. Only the speed of her breathing gave anything away.

"Does your head hurt?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Do you feel sick?"

"A little."

"Dizzy?"

"Same."

She nodded once, like she had expected no other answers.

"Good. Not good, obviously, but it could be worse."

I let out something that might have been a laugh in another life.

Hailey looked up at me with huge, miserable eyes.

"How did you fall?" she asked.

I glanced at Elise. Elise glanced back.

"It was the car. It slid off the road," I said carefully. "I bumped my head, that's all."

Hailey's mouth turned down. "That sounds bad."

"It wasn't very fun," I admitted.

Elise wet a cloth under warm water, wrung it out, and came back to me. "Tilt your chin up."

The first touch to my temple made me hiss.

"I know," she murmured. "I know."

Her voice was quiet, but the words came too quickly, clipped at the edges, her calm stretched taut enough that I could hear the strain underneath. She cleaned around the dried blood with the kind of care that only made me more aware of every separate bruise and sting.

Hailey pressed closer to my side, one hand clutching the fabric of my sweater.

"Is Daddy still upset?" she asked.

The cloth stopped for a moment against my skin.

Then Elise kept moving.

"I don't know, darling," she said. "Perhaps a little."

Hailey frowned. "Because Kelsey got hurt?"

"Yes," Elise said.

That was the safest version of the truth available to us, and even that sat badly in the room.

I kept my gaze on the table while Elise worked. The wood grain blurred and sharpened in waves. My head still throbbed, though less wildly than before. The house was quiet enough for me to hear the familiar soft hum of the refrigerator and the quiet ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall.

Hailey moved around to stare openly at the cut by my temple.

"Will it leave a scar?"

"Probably not," I said honestly.

"What if it does?"

I turned my head slightly toward her. "I don't know. Maybe I'll try wearing bangs."

She frowned, clearly unconvinced that this was a satisfactory medical outcome.

Elise cleaned the scrape along my cheekbone next, then the bruised skin near my shoulder where the crash had left its mark. She said very little while she worked, but I could feel the questions pressing against the inside of her silence.

She wanted to know exactly what had happened, but couldn't ask with Hailey close.

"Did you cry?" Hailey asked.

I looked at her.

She looked back with complete seriousness.

"I... I don't think so. I don't remember much," I said. I was too scared to cry , I thought.

"I think Daddy also cries," she said quietly. "He just doesn't want anyone to see."

That burned harder than the antiseptic.

Elise's hands paused again.

Then she bent her head lower over my shoulder, as if the angle helped her concentrate.

"He'll be fine, baby," I said. "Grandpa Jack went there to comfort him." I swallowed against the sudden tightness in my throat as I watched her nod.

To break whatever was building there, I turned to Elise.

"You're very good at this."

Elise glanced up. "At what?"

"This." I nodded toward the gauze, the ointment, the bandage now wrapping clean and white around my shoulder. "You do it like you're a medical professional." I paused. "Are you? Or were you?"

Something unreadable moved across her face.

Then she looked back down at her hands.

"In a way, we all are," she said.

I paused, unable to hide the confusion on my face.

Her fingers smoothed the edge of the bandage flat before she continued.

"We do not go to human hospitals," she said quietly. "And we do not suffer from most human illnesses in the first place. Our bodies heal quickly. Faster than yours. Faster than doctors would know what to do with if they looked too closely." She adjusted the tension of the wrap and tied it off with practical precision. "So yes. We learn."

There it was again, that strange, familiar sensation. The feeling of being inside my own family and outside it at the same time.

Hailey looked from Elise to me.

"But Kelsey can go to hospitals," she said, "And I can, too. They give you shots there."

Elise's face softened. "Yes."

Hailey frowned. "But why can't you go?"

The sentence landed like a blow. Elise's mouth pressed into a thin line.

"Because... Shots don't work on us, darling."

"Why not?"

"It's complicated, Hailey," I said, because I didn't know what else to say. Elise gave me a quick sharp glance.

Hailey pouted a little, then looked toward the window, toward the dark yard beyond it.

"Can Daddy go to hospitals?"

"No," Elise said.

Hailey's lower lip trembled.

Before she could ask the next question, the back door opened.

All three of us looked up at once.

Jack stepped inside, bringing in a rush of cold air.

There was dirt on his boots and a smear of old dust along one sleeve, as if he'd braced himself against the barn wall. His face looked tired, but he was breathing normally.

Something in my chest loosened by a thread.

Elise set the scissors down so quickly they clattered against the counter.

"Well?" she asked.

Jack shut the door behind him and stood there for a moment, letting the warmth of the kitchen meet him without softening anything in his face.

"He's back," he said.

The words crossed the room and settled into all of us at once.

Hailey straightened. "Daddy?"

Jack looked at her, and whatever else was in him that night, he still had enough gentleness to answer her first.

"Yes. He's all right."

Hailey made a small sound somewhere between relief and a sob.

Elise gripped the counter with one hand. "How much back?"

"Enough." Jack's eyes shifted to me, then to Elise. "He shifted back. Spoke." He exhaled through his nose. "His head is clear."

Elise closed her eyes briefly.

"I should take him clean clothes," she said at once, already turning toward the hallway. "The grey sweatpants, maybe. And a new sweater."

Jack nodded.

"He'll need them."

Hailey tugged at the hem of his flannel. "Can I go see him? Please, please, pleeease. I've been good. I've waited."

Jack crouched just enough to bring himself closer to her level.

"Not tonight. Soon."

Her face crumpled. "When?"

"Soon."

Hailey looked dangerously close to tears. "You always say that."

Jack placed one big hand over the back of her head for a second, like he didn't know what to do but wanted to do something.

I watched him.

Really watched him.

The rage from the woods was gone, or hidden deep enough now that I couldn't see it. What remained looked like exhaustion stretched over iron.

"Not much longer now. Be patient."

Even Hailey knew arguing with Jack was pointless. She pressed her lips together and nodded.

"Come, darling, let's find you something to play with." Elise took hold of her hand and led her to the living room.

The kitchen felt emptier without her in it. Colder.

"What the hell happened over there?" I hissed when I was certain she was out of earshot.

Jack looked at me, and I knew he saw my worry beneath the anger. He walked farther into the kitchen. One boot left a mud stain on the tile.

"You hadn't come home by dusk. That alone had him pacing, then demanding I go look for you." His eyes narrowed slightly, remembering. "Then I brought you back bleeding." Jack glanced toward the window, toward the dark shape of the barn that now stood quiet. "It sent him over the edge for a minute," he said.

"But he's back?" I asked, my spine straightening under his gaze despite the pain.

"More than back." His voice lowered. "I saw something in him tonight I haven't seen in a very long time."

My pulse quickened.

"What?"

Jack held my gaze for a long second.

"Focus," he said.

The word somehow filled the space between us.

Jack went on.

"Until now he's been fighting not to drown. Snapping back to himself, losing ground, clawing back again. Tonight was different." He leaned one hand on the chair opposite mine. "He wasn't just reacting. He wanted to know what happened. Wanted details. Wanted to understand."

A shiver ran down my spine that had nothing to do with cold.

I thought of Dad in the barn that morning, hand raised between us, forcing himself to stop me from coming closer.

I thought of the scarf clutched to his chest like a lifeline.

Of his face when he said he was trying.

"That's good, isn't it?" I asked.

Jack's mouth twitched faintly, but there was no real humor in it.

"It is," he said. "And it isn't."

I frowned.

He straightened again.

"It means he's coming back into himself," he said. "But it also means he'll come back with clarity along with instinct." He let out a heavy sigh, then scratched his head. "That's why I didn't tell him anything except that you'd had an accident. But there was enough clarity in his eyes for me to see he didn't quite believe me."

The room seemed to lose a degree of warmth.

Elise returned then with the folded clean shirt and sweater in her hands.

She touched my cheek very lightly, fingers cool. A practiced imitation of human touch, but no less honest. I understood that now.

"You need rest," she told me, handing the clothes to Jack, who took them and turned toward the back door.

"I'll get him settled," he said.

He had one hand on the latch when I spoke.

"Jack."

He looked back.

I hesitated.

There were too many questions. Too many things I wanted to know and too many things I wasn't ready to hear.

"Never mind."

Jack blinked, and for a moment I thought he might say something.