The song became a prism of harmonies while all the Careys, a metronome of skin and teeth and hair, flashed in time. Something dark passed—something that hurt—but I didn’t understand it. A feeling struck, like a church bell in the distance, and then it receded.

Then—Jes stopped abruptly, unfurling herself like a heron, stalking into the wings. The music was still playing, the song stuck on the refrain: blame, blame, blame. When I heard the rumble of a metal stairwell—she was climbing somewhere—I crept toward the door, planting my feet carefully, like there were land mines.

Please don’t see me, I prayed silently, sneaking through the lobby and out to the driveway. Every time I saw Jes play, I knew more of who she was, and how precisely, cuttingly observant she could be. She taught me how to speak her language, even as I became more terrified of her. Terrified, genuinely, of what she would reveal about me. When I was twenty yards away, about to turn toward the bungalows, I disappeared around the bend and let out a long, low sigh of relief.

Then I heard her voice.

“HEY!” she yelled angrily. “Who’s there?”

I reasoned that she had not seen me. Faced with the prospect of explaining myself, I could not. So—like a child, I turned on my heels and fled. I ran with all my speed back to my bungalow, turning at the hedge and fumbling with the door, locking it behind me, and crouching on the floor in case she came for me.

She never did.

Later, as I tried to recall the feeling, the church bell, that I’d had at the end of the film, I failed. Try to remember a sound. Try to hear it again, all the way through, without hearing it.

It’s impossible.

*  *  *

Tyler flagged me down in the driveway after work a few nights later. I stopped. It seemed that he might lean into the window, but then he didn’t—he held back and kept his distance, looking straight at me, like he always did.

“How’s your back?” he asked.

“Aching, but”—I shrugged—“that’s what it is.”

He stood there with his hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched, nervous, and stared at me for a second before speaking.

“Um,” he said. “Want to have a drink?”

Oh God. I didn’t think I could stand to be alone with him. My eyes widened and he quickly course-corrected, raising his thumb toward the Mission. “Sundowners?”

“Sure,” I agreed, throwing the truck into park and following him to the Adirondack chairs on the deck jutting out over the lake—and then we were sitting and talking and everything was simple.

Two drinks later, I went to bed.