I did it. Violet’s answer was immediate. I finally took care of it. I owe her that much. I owe them both.

The car was full of pounding silence as neither sister talked on the way home. At Violet’s house, her small cottage tucked back from the river among trees and climbing vines and bird feeders, safe from the violence that had taken place upriver, Violet tucked Trudy into bed, then climbed in next to her.

“Trudy?” Violet whispered in the dark, but Trudy’s gaze remained on the ceiling. There was no answer.

Part Three
Land

Fourteen

On the day of Sugar Bend’s annual River Days Art Festival, Maya woke up to something clanging outside. When she pulled back the corner of the curtain, she saw the small silver bird feeder that hung from the dogwood tree outside her window. She loved to watch the cardinals bicker and squabble over the birdseed in the tray, but at the moment the feeder was free of birds as it swung back and forth in the wind.

The television was on in the den, so she followed the sound and spotted Trudy at the dining table, working on a light and airy driftwood wind chime she was trying to finish before the festival started. Violet was in the kitchen with a hip leaned against the counter, her arms crossed, staring out at the river.

Violet had been acting so strange lately. She’d been jumpy and irritable, furiously flipping through issues of the newspaper and switching off the evening news as soon as it changed to local coverage. And she stared out toward the river a lot, as if expecting something or someone to rise out of it.

A news reporter had knocked on their door the week before, asking strange questions about the boat that had washed ashore upriver. Maya didn’t know why people were worked up about this random rusty boat, but she answered the man’s questions as well as she could—no, Violet and Trudy weren’t home. No, she didn’t know anything about the boat. No, she’d never heard of Jay Malone. Later, when she had told Violet about the man and the questions, Violet walked straight out the door and down to the river. She sat at the edge, her toes in the water, her gaze on some unseen thing out in the middle.

In the kitchen Violet stirred to life and grabbed a dish towel from the oven door handle as the Channel 10 meteorologist gestured wildly at the map behind him.

“This wind is something else, y’all,” he said with a giddy grin. “Out of the east at twenty miles per hour with gusts up to thirty. All you festivalgoers and shop owners better hang on to your tent poles and shopping bags today. Winds like this typically mean a storm is blowing in, but as you can see here on the radar, our entire viewing area is crystal clear. Not a cloud in sight. But the strange wind sure is blowing.”